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PRESBYTERY  OF  NEW  YORK. 


The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 


United 

States  of  America, 

Jf 

.  AGAINST 

The  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D. 

ARGUMENT  OF 

REV.  GEORGE  W.  F.  "BIRCH,  D.D.. 

A  Member  of  the  Prosecuting  Committee . 


PRESBYTERY  OF  NEW  YORK. 


The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the 


United 

States  of  America, 

against 

The  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D. 

ARGUMENT  OF 

V 

REV.  GEORGE  W.  F.  BIRCH,  D.D., 


A  Member  of  the  Prosecuting  Committee . 


PRESS  OF 


DOUGLAS  TAYLOR 
£  WARREN  ST. 

N,  Y. 


INTRODUCTION. 


Mr.  Moderator,  Fathers  and  Brethren  of  this  Vener¬ 
able  Court  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Presbytery 
of  New  York  :  The  opening  plea  of  this  case  demands  a 
brief  outline  of  its  history.  On  Tuesday  evening,  January 
20th,  1891,  the  Rev.  Charles  Augustus  Briggs,  D.D.,  was  in¬ 
augurated  as  the  incumbent  of  the  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of 
Biblical  Theology  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  of  New 
York  City.  On  that  occasion  he  made  and  subscribed  the  fol¬ 
lowing  declaration :  “  I  believe  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  to  be  the  Word  of  God,  the  only  infallible  rule 
of  faith  and  practice,  and  I  do  now,  in  the  presence  of  God  and 
the  Directors  of  this  Seminary,  solemnly  and  sincerely  receive 
and  adopt  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith  as  containing 
the  system  of  doctrine  taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  I  do  also 
in  like  manner  approve  of  the  Presbyterian  form  of  government; 
and  I  do  solemnly  promise  that  I  will  not  teach  or  inculcate 
anything  which  shall  appear  to  me  to  be  subversive  of  the  said 
system  of  doctrines  or  of  the  said  Form  of  Government  as  long 
as  I  shall  continue  to  be  a  professor  in  the  Seminary.”* 

The  Inaugural  Address  which  followed  the  utterance  and 
subscription  of  the  pledge  just  recited,  led  the  Presbytery  of 
New  York,  at  its  meeting  on  April  13th,  1891,  to  adopt  the  fol¬ 
lowing  paper: 

“  Whereas,  The  Address  of  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.  D.v 
a  member  of  this  Presbytery,  delivered  on  Tuesday  evening, 
January  20th,  1891,  on  the  occasion  of  his  inauguration  as  the 
‘  Incumbent  of  the  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Biblical  Theology,” 
in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  (which  Address  has  since  been 
published  by  said  Seminary),  has  been  very  generally  criticised 
as  containing  statements  which  are  seemingly  contrary  to  the 
teachings  and  spirit  of  our  Confession  of  Faith;  and 


*  Inaugural  Address,  Third  Edition,  page  10. 


4 


IV/iereas,  This  Address  has  also  been  actually  made  the  occa¬ 
sion  of  complaint  to  the  General  Assembly  by  at  least  four 
Presbyteries ;  therefore, 

“  Resolved ,  That  a  Committee  consisting  of  seven  persons  be 
appointed,  to  which  the  said  Address  shall  be  referred  for  con¬ 
sideration,  with  instructions  to  report  at  the  meeting  in  May, 
what  action,  if  any,  be  appropriate  in  relation  thereto.” 

Whereupon  the  following  Committee  was  appointed,  viz.  : 
Rev.  Messrs.  George  W.  F.  Birch,  Henry  Vandyke,  Joseph  J. 
Lampe,  Jesse  F.  Forbes  and  J.  H.  Mcllvaine,  with  Elders  John 
J.  Stevenson  and  Walter  Edwards.* 

The  Committee  regretted  to  report  the  resignation  of  Dr. 
Vandyke,  who  has  requested  me  to  state  that  he  declined  to 
serve,  on  the  ground  of  “  more  important  business.” 

The  report  of  this  Committee  adopted  by  the  Presbytery  at 
its  meeting  on  May  12th,  1891,  recommended  the  judicial  inves¬ 
tigation  of  the  case.  Hence,  in  accordance  with  Section  11  of  the 
Book  of  Discipline,  the  Prosecuting  Committee,  from  May  17th, 

1891,  to  the  present  time,  has  discharged  its  task  in  pursuance  of 
a  minute  furnished  by  the  Stated  Clerk  which  states  that  its 
work  is  “to  arrange  and  prepare  the  necessary  proceedings  ap¬ 
propriate  to  the  case  of  Dr.  Briggs.”  The  authority  and  the 
rights  of  this  Committee  as  an  original  party  have  been  estab¬ 
lished  by  the  Court  of  Final  Appeal,  the  General  Assembly  of 

1892,  in  the  very  decree  under  which  this  Court  is  in  present 
session.  After  due  consideration  the  Prosecuting  Committee, 
under  a  full  sense  of  its  responsibility  to  God,  with  a  view  to 
the  welfare  of  the  Church  and  controlled  by  a  desire  to  deal 
justly  and  fairly  by  Dr.  Briggs,  has  concluded  to  table  the 
charges  and  specifications  which  have  been  read  in  your  hear¬ 
ing. 

The  Court  will  observe,  Mr.  Moderator,  that  the  Committee 
has  confined  the  charges  and  specifications  to  the  Inaugural 
Address.  In  a  second  edition  published  over  his  own  name, 
Dr.  Briggs  reaffirms  every  statement  of  the  Inaugural  in  the 
following  emphatic  manner:  “I  have  seen  nothing  in  the  hos¬ 
tile  criticism  to  lead  me  to  make  any  change  whatever  either  in 


*  Record,  page  24. 


5 


the  matter  or  the  form  of  the  address.”*  The  Court  will  remem¬ 
ber  that  the  re-affirmation  was  made  subsequent  to  Dr.  Briggs’ 
answers  to  the  categorical  questions  propounded  by  the  direc¬ 
tors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

A  word  or  two  with  respect  to  those  categorical  questions, 
each  of  which,  in  my  opinion,  is  answered  in  the  very  asKing  of 
the  question.  These  questions,  with  Dr.  Briggs’  “  Yes  and 
“  No  ”  appended,  have  been  deemed  by  several  a  sufficient  and 
satisfactory  explanation  of  the  declarations  of  the  Inaugural. 
It  will  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  substitute  presented 
by  Dr.  George  Alexander,  October  5th,  1891!  (which  was  lost 
and  which  was  based  on  these  categorical  questions),  was  care¬ 
ful  to  note  that  the  Presbytery  did  not  choose  to  pronounce 
upon  the  sufficiency  of  those  declarations  to  cover  all  the  points 
concerning  which  Dr.  Briggs  was  called  in  question.  Now,  I 
regard  this  substitute  of  Dr.  George  Alexander  as  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  those  who  supported  it  to  spring  the  categorical 
catechism  of  the  Union  Seminary  Board  of  Directors  upon  the 
Presbytery  as  a  finality.  It  was  simply  an  interference  in 
judicial  proceedings  which  the  Presbytery  had  begun  by  a  body 
of  men  who  are  no  Presbytery  at  all  nor  a  Church  Court  of  any 
degree.  Who  authorized  the  Board  of  Directors  to  ask  those 
questions?  Who  gives  authority  or  pertinence  to  either  ques¬ 
tions  or  answers?  I  think  that  the  only  thing  the  Presbytery 
ought  to  have  done  was  to  have  ruled  those  questions  and 
answers  out  of  Court.  Let  us  recall  the  precise  position  of 
affairs.  There  were  repeated  and  recent  publications  (especial¬ 
ly  the  Inaugural  Address),  of  views  which  are  regarded  by 
many  as  variously  and  deeply  unsound,  as  compromising  our 
whole  system  of  theology,  with  the  aggravation  of  coming  from 
a  prominent  professor  in  a  Theological  Seminary,  with  intima¬ 
tions  that  these  views  are  taught  and  are  to  be  taught.  Pri¬ 
vately  a  party  questions  this  professor.  Are  you  unsound?  Did 
you  say  anything  unsound?  And  he  answers,  “  No.”  Clearly, 
Mr.  Moderator,  this  is  a  bit  of  by-play  with  which  this  Court 
has  nothing  to  do.  It  is  not  ad  rent.  The  duty  of  our  Commit- 


*  Inaugural,  Third  Edition,  Preface, 
f  Record,  pages  (64-65). 


6 


tee  was  to  gather  out  of  the  Inaugural  Address  definite  state¬ 
ments  of  error  and  prove  that  these  were  published  by  Pro¬ 
fessor  Briggs.  Then  he  should  either  recant  with  equal  pub¬ 
licity  or  be  censured  at  the  discretion  of  the  Presbytery. 

It  may  prevent  confusion  to  note  at  this  point  the  fact  that 
the  only  fountain  of  authority  in  this  case  is  set  forth  in  the 
title-page  of  our  Confession  of  Faith,  which  reads  as  follows: 
“The  Constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  containing  the  Confession  of  Faith,  the  Cate¬ 
chisms,  and  the  Directory  for  the  Worship  of  God,  together  with 
the  Plan  of  Government  and  Discipline,  as  ratified  and  adopted 
by  the  Synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  1788;  and  as  amended  in  the  years  1805-1888. 

The  authority  for  this  title-page  is  found  in  the  following 
extract  from  the  minutes  of  the  Synod  of  New  York  and  Phila¬ 
delphia,  dated  May  29th,  1788:  “And  the  Synod  order  that  the 
said  Directory  and  Catechisms  be  printed  and  bound  up  in  the 
same  volume  with  the  Confession  of  Faith  and  the  Form  of 
Government  and  Discipline,  and  that  the  whole  be  considered 
as  the  standard  of  our  doctrine,  government,  discipline,  and 
worship,  agreeably  to  the  resolutions  of  the  Synod  at  their  pres¬ 
ent  session.  ”  * 

The  framers  of  this  Constitution  endeavored  to  adapt  the  doc¬ 
trine,  government,  and  discipline  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Scotland  to  American  institutions.  Among  the  individuals  who 
were  active  in  the  work  were  Drs.  Witherspoon,  Rodgers, 
Woodhull,  McWhorter,  Samuel  Stanhope  Smith,  George  Duf- 
field  and  Ashbel  Green.  It  is  not  difficult  to  reach  a  consensus 
of  interpretation  of  the  Constitution  on  the  part  of  the  members 
of  the  adopting  Synod  through  their  writings.  The  Assembly’s 
Digest  is  our  record  of  authoritative  precedent.  This  fact  is  not 
to  be  set  aside  by  the  interpretations  which  members  of  the 
Westminster  Assembly  of  Divines  may  have  put  upon  the  West¬ 
minster  Confession — by  instances  of  ecclesiastical  procedure  in 
the  Church  of  Scotland.  In  the  adjudication  of  this  case  the 
recognized,  the  proper  authorities  are  neither  Anthony  Burgess, 
nor  Edward  Reynolds,  nor  John  Arrowsmith,  nor  Robert  Baylie, 


*  Records  of  Presbyterian  Church,  page  547. 


7 


nor  Samuel  Rutherford,  nor  any  other  one  of  the  makers  of  the 
Westminster  Confession.  The  adopting  act  of  the  Synod  of 
1729,  in  the  present  juncture,  is  history  and  not  law.  The  rule 
of  law  here  is  not  the  action  of  the  Scottish  Presbyteries  in  the 
cases  which  gave  birth  to  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland;  or  in 
the  trial  of  Robertson  Smith.  This  Church  Court  must  give 
heed  to  the  framers  of  our  Constitution,  even  if  the  statement 
be  true  (which  personally  I  do  not  grant),  which  I  read  in  that 
well-known  book  called  “Whither,”  that  they  “were  not  noted 
for  their  wisdom  and  ability.  They  were  pious,  excellent,  prac¬ 
tical  men,  but  there  was  not  one  really  eminent  divine  among 
them.  There  was  not  one  who  could  rank  as  a  first-rate  author¬ 
ity  in  Biblical,  historical,  dogmatic  or  even  practical  theology. 
They  entirely  set  aside  more  than  half  of  the  work  of  the  West¬ 
minster  divines.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  they  would 
have  made  a  new  Confession  of  Faith,  if  they  had  deemed  it  wise 
to  do  so.”*  And  so  they  just  arranged  the  Confession  and  the 
Form  of  Government  as  they  wished  to.  Notwithstanding  the 
departure  from  what  I  believe  to  be  fact,  with  which  this  quota¬ 
tion  abounds — notwithstanding  the  misrepresentation  of  such 
men  as  Drs.  Witherspoon,  Rodgers  and  Green — American  Pres¬ 
byterianism  knows  no  fundamental  law  but  that  made  by  the 
Fathers  in  1788,  and  applied  and  amended  by  their  successors. 
To  decide  this  case  by  any  other  would  be  as  unreasonable  as 
for  our  Supreme  Court  at  Washington  to  set  aside,  for  the  sake 
of  British  precedent,  the  American  Constitution,  or  for  a  court 
in  New  York  City  to  decide  a  case  by  the  Code  Napoleon. 

Let  this  venerable  court  understand  that  the  gravamen  of  the 
charges  and  specifications  reported  by  the  Prosecuting  Com¬ 
mittee  lies  in  the  fact  affirmed  by  the  majority  report  of  the  Com¬ 
mittee  of  Inquiry  whose  recommendation  was  adopted  by  the 
Presbytery,  April  13th,  1891.  Announcing  the  result  of  a  com¬ 
parison  of  the  Inaugural  Address  with  the  Westminster  Con¬ 
fession,  the  Committee  of  Inquiry  declared  that  “  after  making 
due  allowance  for  reasonable  latitude  of  interpretation,”  the 
“Address  does  conflict  with  the  Confession.”  Indeed  the 
reason  of  the  appointment  of  this  Prosecuting  Committee,  was 


*  Briggs’  “  Whither,”  pages  32-33. 


8 


the  conviction  of  the  Presbytery  that  the  “Inaugural  Address/' 
as  to  word,  spirit  and  temper  was  a  transgression  of  all  reason¬ 
able  latitude  of  interpretation  so  unique  as  to  demand  judicial 
investigation.* 

It  is  one  thing  for  a  man  to  empty  a  minute  blood-vessel,  and 
another  to  sever  the  principal  artery  or  to  cut  the  jugular  vein; 
one  thing  to  have  a  bullet  imbedded  in  the  calf  of  the  leg  and 
another  to  have  it  pierce  the  heart  or  the  brain.  It  is  one  thing 
in  a  building  to  cut  a  door  here  and  to  close  up  a  window  there, 
and  another  to  go  down  to  the  cellar  and  remove  the  main  sup¬ 
ports  of  the  upper  stories.  Every  system,  whether  material, 
mental  or  moral,  manifests  the  distinction  between  the  inci¬ 
dental  and  the  vital.  To  lose,  to  remove  or  to  forsake  the  for¬ 
mer  may  occasion  more  or  less  inconvenience ;  it  may  be  injury. 
To  lose,  to  remove  or  to  forsake  the  latter  means  in  every  case 
destruction. 

We  can  conceive  of  no  condition  of  the  human  system  that 
will  permit  the  severance  of  the  principal  artery  or  jugular  vein 
— that  will  permit  our  neighbor  to  shoot  us  through  the  heart 
or  brain.  Neither  can  we  conceive  of  any  reasonable  latitude 
of  interpretation  that  will  excuse  Dr.  Briggs’  teaching  as  set 
forth  in  the  Charges  and  Specifications.  The  proofs  have  been 
and  will  be  given  that  these  teachings  are  a  life  stab — a  life  stroke 
at  the  system  of  Bible  Truth  set  forth  in  the  Westminster  Stand¬ 
ards.  These  teachings  strike  away  the  foundation  support  on 
which  the  Westminster  symbols  stand  in  their  work  for  the 
Church  as  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth.  Let  me  not  be 
understood  as  saying  that  the  Presbyterian  Church  does  not 
bear  with  a  great  many  departures  from  the  Westminster 
Standards;  with  a  great  many  vagaries  of  her  theological  in¬ 
structors,  as  there  are  those  who  care  neither  what  they  say  nor 
what  they  affirm.  “A  man,”  one  tells  us,  “  has  been  known  to 
get  along  with  his  arms  and  legs  gone;  without  eyes;  with  a 
part  of  his  skull  shot  away ;  but  it  was  an  existence  hardly 
worthy  of  the  name  of  life.”  But  when  the  death-dealing  ball 
is  aimed  at  his  heart,  the  question  is  not  between  life  and  death ;, 
it  is  life  or  death. 


*  Record,  Page  32. 


9 


No  member  of  this  Court  will  doubt  that  the  Inaugural 
Address  deals  with  things  vitally  essential  to  not  only  the  adop¬ 
tion  but  the  very  existence  of  the  Standards  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  The  opinion  that  its  dealing  with  them  is  a  contra¬ 
diction  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  which  is  the  basis  of  those 
Standards,  and  consequently  a  contradiction  of  the  Standards 
themselves,  I  am  here  to  maintain  with  all  my  heart,  soul, 
strength  and  mind. 

The  attention  of  the  Court  is  now  invited  to  Charges  I.  and 
II.,  which  differ  only  in  their  subject  and  which  require — 
although  distinct — for  the  most  part  a  similar  line  of  argument. 

SOURCE  OF  AUTHORITY. 

Charge  I. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America 
charges  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  being  a  Minister  of 
the  said  Presbyterian  Church  and  a  member  of  the  Presbytery 
of  New  York,  with  teaching  that  the  Reason  is  a  fountain  of 
divine  authority  to  such  an  extent  that  it  may  and  does  savingly 
enlighten  men,  even  such  men  as  reject  the  Scriptures  as  the 
authoritative  proclamation  of  the  will  of  God  and  reject  also  the 
way  of  salvation  through  the  mediation  and  sacrifice  of  the  Son 
of  God  as  revealed  therein;  all  of  which  is  contrary  to  the 
essential  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  and  of  the  Standards 
of  the  said  Church,  that  the  Holy  Scripture  is  most  necessary, 
and  the  rule  of  faith  and  practice. 

Charge  II.  is  as  follows: 

“  The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  Ameiica 
charges  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.  D.,  being  a  Minister  of 
the  said  Presbyterian  Church  and  a  member  of  the  Presbytery 
of  New  York,  with  teaching  that  the  Church  is  a  fountain  of 
divine  authority  which,  apart  from  the  Holy  Scripture,  may  and 
does  savingly  enlighten  men;  which  is  contrary  to  the  essential 
doctrine  of  the  Holy  Scripture  and  of  the  Standards  of  the  said 
Church,  that  the  Holy  Scripture  is  most  necessary  and  the  rule 
of  faith  and  practice.” 


10 


Unless  requested  I  will  omit  the  specifications  under  this 
charge,  as  they  have  been  printed. 

If  these  charges  be  true,  Dr.  Briggs  has  pulled  out  of  its 
place  the  golden  thread  which  God  has  woven  into  the  Holy 
Scripture  and  which  the  framers  of  our  Constitution  have 
woven  into  the  Standards  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  If  these 
charges  be  true,  I  ask,  where  stands  the  whole  world  of  Evan¬ 
gelical  Christendom,  to  say  nothing  of  our  Presbyterianism? 
What  becomes  of  Chillingworth’s  famous  boast:  “  The  Bible — 
the  Bible  is  the  only  religion  of  Protestants  ”?  Professor  Schaff, 
of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  in  the  preface  to  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Edition  of  Lange’s  Commentary  on  the  New  Testament, 
writes:  “The  Bible  is  first  and  last  a  book  of  religion.  It 
presents  the  only  true  universal  and  absolute  religion  of  God;”* 
and  in  the  “  Creeds  of  Christendom  ”  he  writes  thus  concerning 
the  Westminster  Confession’s  Statement  of  the  “  Divine  inspi¬ 
ration  and  “authority”  of  the  Bible  “and  its  sufficiency  as 
an  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice”:  “  No  other  Protestant 
symbol  has  such  a  clear,  judicious,  precise  and  exhaustive  state¬ 
ment  of  this  fundamental  article  of  Protestantism.  ”  f  But 
further,  Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  another  Professor  of  Union  Theo¬ 
logical  Seminary,  says  in  his  sermon  on  “The  Inspiration  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  ”  (p.  3),  “We  are  to  adduce  the  evidence  that 
they  (the  original  canonical  Scriptures)  are  the  word  of  God,  and 
as  such  an  infallible  and  final  authority  for  faith  and  life.”  But 
lastly,  Rev.  Dr.  Murkland,  of  Baltimore,  has  told  us,  “One  of 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  Roman  Catholic  prelates  of  this 
country  said  to  a  friend  of  mine  not  long  ago,  ‘  There  is  one 
Church  that  we.fear  above  all  others,  and  that  is  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  because  we  always  know  where  to  find  it,  and  it  meets 
us  at  every  point  with  an  intelligent  answer  for  its  faith  and  the 
Bible  for  its  basis.’  If  I  were  to  call,”  continues  Dr.  Murk- 
land,  “for  testimony  from  another  direction,  I  would  call  upon 
the  rampant  infidelity  of  this  age  which  dares  to  say  (and  I 
glory  in  saying  it)  that  the  Church  which  it  hates  above  all 
others  is  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Why  is  this?  It  is  because 


*  Lange  on  Matthew,  page  5  (Preface), 
t  Schaff ’s  Creeds  of  Christendom,  Vol  I.,  page  767. 


11 


we  stand  on  the  historic  confessions.  The  members  of  this 
Court,  Mr.  Moderator,  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  the  key-note 
of  this  confessional  chorus  is  the  declaration  which  every  Pres¬ 
byterian  minister  affirms,  as  his  ordination  depends  upon  the 
proper  answer  to  the  question,  “  Do  you  believe  the  Scriptures 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  to  be  the  Word  of  God,  the 
only  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice?” 

Specification  I.  brings  to  view  the  word  which  is  a  very  prom¬ 
inent  one  throughout  this  controversy.  That  term  is  the  word 
“fountain.”  A  fountain,  *  *  according  to  Webster,  is  a 

source  from  which  anything  is  supplied  continuously;  origin; 
first  cause.  And  because  a  source  it  confers  “  authority.”  The 
Presbyteries  are  the  fountain  of  all  our  ecclesiastical  authority. 
Synods  and  Assemblies  owe  all  their  authority  to  the  Presbyte¬ 
ries.  Our  civil  authority  finds  its  fountain  “in  the  people.”  To 
call  the  Church  and  Reason  fountains  of  divine  authority  in  mat¬ 
ters  of  religious  faith  and  worship  is  to  affirm  their  authority 
therein.  If  their  authority  be  divine,  and  if  by  either  of  them  a 
man  can  find  out  God  unto  salvation  apart  from  the  Scriptures, 
as  Dr.  Briggs  teaches ;  if  by  the  Church  and  Reason  a  man  can 
attain  to  the  knowledge  of  God  as  a  pardoning  God,  regener¬ 
ating,  justifying,  sanctifying  and  saving  the  soul,  and  bringing 
it  through  Divine  Grace  to  glory  and  eternal  life,  the  Holy 
Scripture,  instead  of  being  “most  necessary,”  is  only  a  super¬ 
fluity.  Therefore  it  is  useless  to  say,  as  Dr.  Briggs  did  in  the 
response  to  the  charges  and  specifications  preferred  by  the  Pros¬ 
ecuting  Committee: 

“  The  Reason  is  a  4  great- fountain  of  divine  authority,’  and 
yet  not  an  ‘  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice.’  The  Church  is 
a  ‘  great  fountain  of  divine  authority,’  and  yet  not  an  4  infallible 
rule  of  faith  and  practice.’  4  The  Bible  is  a  great  fountain  of 
divine  authority,’  and  it  is  also  4  the  only  infallible  rule  of  faith 
and  practice.’  Here  are  two  different  statements  of  truths  that 
may  be  embraced  under  a  more  general  truth,  but  to  affirm  the 
one,  as  to  Bible,  Church,  and  Reason,  that  4  they  are  great 
fountains  of  divine  authority,’  is  not  to  deny  that  the  Bible  is 
the  only  one  of  which  the  other  can  be  affirmed,  namely,  that 


12 


4  the  Scriptures  are  the  only  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  ’  ” 
(Response,  p.  20.) 

For  if  these  words  be  true,  the  44  Church  and  Reason”  are  not 
fallible  in  such  a  case,  for  if  they  confer  on  any  man  the  sure 
and  certain  knowledge  of  God  unto  salvation,  they  confer  an 
infallible  knowledge,  and  the  Scriptures  can  do  no  more.  Hence, 
there  is  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  the  Inaugural 
Address  co-ordinates  the  Church  and  Reason  with  the  Bible.  It 
is  simply  an  evasion  and  a  contradiction  to  say  that  the  Church 
and  Reason  are  44  fallible,”  while  insisting  that  they  infallibly 
lead  a  soul  to  eternal  life  apart  from  the  Scriptures. 

The  whole  argument  of  the  44  Inaugural  Address  ”  is  made  in 
the  interest  of  this  very  view.  Dr.  Briggs  assailed  the  inerrancy 
and  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures,  and  assailing  these  he  introduced 
44  the  Church  and  Reason  ”  as  two  additional  fountains  of  Divine 
Authority  needed  to  give  us  that  “certitude”  which  the  errant 
and  fallible  Scriptures  could  not  give  by  themselves  because 
errant  and  fallible.  It  avails  nothing  to  plead  in  the  44  Response  ” 
that  of  the  three  fountains  of  Divine  Authority  two  are  “fal¬ 
lible”  and  one  only  “infallible,”  viz.  :  the  Scriptures.  Necessity 
is  the  mother  of  invention,  and  the  quotation  from  the  Response 
seems  to  bean  after  thought.  The  original  words  and  argument 
cannot  be  thus  explained  away.  For  either  the  Church  and  the 
Reason  do  not  give  us  a  sure  and  certain  knowledge  of  God 
unto  salvation,  in  which  case  they  are  indeed  44  fallible  ”  and  of 
no  authority  in  finding  eternal  life,  or  they  do  give  us  the  sure 
and  certain  knowledge  of  God  unto  salvation,  in  which  case 
they  are  44  infallible”  as  the  Scriptures  themselves.  Dr.  Briggs 
asserts  that  they  do  give  men  this  sure  and  certain  knowledge, 
and  adduces  Cardinal  Newman  and  Dr.  James  Martineau  as 
representative  Christians,  who  thus  found  out  God,  Heaven  and 
Eternal  Life  apart  from  the  Scriptures.  It  is  simply  unreason¬ 
able  to  say  in  such  a  case  that  the  Scriptures  are  the  only  infal¬ 
lible  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  They  are  not.  The  denial  of 
44  infallibility  ”  to  the  44  Divine  Authority  ”  of  the  Church  and 
Reason,  while  yet  they  give  to  men  a  sure  and  certain  knowledge 
of  God  unto  salvation,  is  a  glaring  contradiction,  and  is  no  plea 
in  abatement  of  the  charges  made  in  this  case. 


13 


I  now  invite  the  attention  of  the  Court  to  the  Scripture  cited 
which  the  statements  set  forth  in  the  specifications  contradict. 

“  To  the  law  and  the  testimony,”  Isaiah  viii.  20,  if  they  (whether 
it  be  Church  or  Reason)  “  speak  not  according  to  this  word  it  is 
because  there  is  no  light  in  them.  It  is  due  to  Dr.  Briggs  to 
quote  the  words  of  the  Response  by  which  he  so  summarily  dis¬ 
misses  this  citation. 

“  (0)  Many  texts  are  torn  from  their  context.  The  first  pas¬ 
sage  cited  is  from  Isa.  viii.  20.  The  passage  is  incorrectly  trans¬ 
lated  in  the  version  used,  for  the  meaning  ‘  there  is  no  light 
in  them  ’  is  not  justified.  The  revised  version  renders  ‘  surely 
there  is  no  morning  for  them,’  they  have  no  hope  of  a  dawn  of 
brighter  things.  The  proper  rendering  is: 

‘  When  they  say  unto  you,  Seek  unto  the  necromancers  and 
unto  wizards ;  Ye  chirpers  and  mutterers,  should  not  a  people 
seek  unto  their  God?  On  behalf  of  the  living  will  they  seek,  unto 
the  dead  for  instruction  and  for  testimony?  If  they  say  not  so, 
who  have  no  dawn,’  etc. 

This  passage  has  no  reference  whatever  to  the  Holy  Script¬ 
ures,  or  any  part  of  them ;  but  it  is  a  rebuke  of  the  people  of 
Judah  for  seeking  necromancers  and  wizards,  rather  than  the 

living  God.”  (Response,  pp.  30-31.) 

Lange’s  Commentary,  prepared  under  the  superintendence  of 
Professor  Schaff,  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  is  diamet¬ 
rically  opposed  to  this  statement  of  Dr.  Briggs.  In  Lange’s 
Isaiah,  p.  138,  we  read,  “  Now  Isaiah  refers  his  disciples  to  the 
divine  source  of  light  and  comfort  which  alone  can  keep  them 
upright  in  the  impending  evil  days.  Whoever  does  not  find  these 
his  support  will  undoubtedly  be  destroyed.  Who  shall  say,  to 
the  law  and  the  testimony  ”  ?  All  that  have  no  dawn.  They  are 
such  as  nowhere  see  in  any  outward  relations  a  ray  of  light  that 
announces  the  day  of  salvation.  Where  such  see  no  inward  com¬ 
fort  and  support  by  means  of  God’s  word,  they  wander  oppressed 
and  hungry,  &c.”  Dr.  Joseph  Addison  Alexander  interprets  as 
follows:  “  Instead  of  resorting  to  these  unprofitable  and  forbid¬ 
den  sources,  the  disciples  of  Jehovah  are  instructed  to  resort  to 
the  law  and  to  the  testimony  (/.  e .,  to  divine  revelation  consid¬ 
ered  as  a  system  of  belief  and  as  a  rule  of  duty),  if  they  speak 


14 


(/.  e. ,  if  any  speak)  not  according  to  this  word  (another  name 
for  the  revealed  will  of  God),  it  is  he  to  whom  there  is  no  dawn  ;  or 
morning  (/.  <?. ,  no  relief  from  the  dark  night  of  calamity).  The 
first  clause  is  elliptical.  None  can  speak  inconsistently  with 
God’s  word — or  none  can  refuse  to  utter  this  word  (viz.,  to 
the  law  and  to  the  testimony)  but  one  whom  God  has  aban¬ 
doned.  ”  * 

Thus  we  see  that  the  citation  from  Isaiah  is,  if  you  please,  a 
defense  of  itself  on  the  part  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  it  brings  the 
Church  and  Reason  as  presented  in  the  Inaugural  down  to  the 
plane  of  the  necromancers  and  wizards  of  Isaiah’s  time.  It 
proves  that  there  is  no  morning  to  those  who  abide  in  Newman’s 
mediaeval  darkness  or  in  Martineau’s  spiritual  blindness. 

Matthew  io:  (32-33).  “32  Whosoever  therefore  shall  confess 

me  before  men,  him  will  I  confess  also  before  my  Father  which 
is  in  heaven.  33  But  whosoever  shall  deny  me  before  men,  him 
will  I  also  deny  before  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven.” 

Can  any  one,  in  view  of  the  Christ  of  the  Bible,  think  of  James 
Martineau’s  denial  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  the 
Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  the  Resurrection  of  the  Body,  the 
personality  of  the  Holy  Ghost — of  his  rejection  of  the  miracles 
of  the  Bible — of  his  denial  of  the  truth  of  Gospel  narratives  and 
the  most  of  the  Theology  of  the  Epistles,  and  call  his  attitude  a 
confession  of  Jesus  Christ?  The  “  Every  one,”  therefore,  of  the 
Greek  (rendered  in  the  authorized  version  whosoever)  strikes 
out  the  exception  which  the  Inaugural  Address  makes  in  favor 

of  James  Martineau.  The  Master  thus  hears  witness  to  the  truth 
of  Charge  I. 

It  is  in  view  of  time  and  eternity,  earth,  heaven  and  hell, 
human  probation  and  human  destiny,  that  Jesus  Christ  shows 
that  nothing  can  take  the  place  of  the  Bible  as  the  means  of 
salvation  as  He  utters  the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus. 
Abraham  from  the  Church  in  heaven  proclaims  to  the  rich  man 
in  hell,  the  all-sufficiency  of  the  Holy  Scripture  for  the  knowl¬ 
edge  on  the  part  of  his  brethren  of  what  was  involved  in  human 


* 


Alexander  on  Isaiah  (abridgment),  Vol.  I.,  page  128. 


15 


immortality  in  view  of  the  future  sufferings  of  the  lost  and  of  the 
future  joys  of  the  saved,  as  appears  from  Luke  1 6:  29—31. 

“29  Abraham  saith  unto  him,  They  have  Moses  and  the 
prophets;  let  them  hear  them.  30  And  he  said,  Nay,  father 
Abraham;  but  if  one  went  unto  them  from  the  dead,  they  will 
repent.  31  And  he  said  unto  him,  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and 
the  prophets;  neither  will  they  be  persuaded,  though  one  rose 
from  the  dead.” 

The  next  citation  is  that  familiar  verse  with  which  our  Lord 
meets  the  caviling  Jews. 

“  John  v.  39  Search  the  Scriptures ;  for  in  them  ye  think  ye 
have  eternal  life;  and  they  are  they  which  testify  of  me.  The 
only  difference  between  the  Jews  and  our  Lord  with  respect  to 
the  Scriptures  as  the  Fountain  of  Divine  Authority  lies  in  His 
appeal  to  them  as  the  Divine  Authority  with  respect  to  Him¬ 
self,  and  in  their  rejection  of  the  voice  of  an  authority  which 
they  themselves  acknowledged.  Indeed  the  Book  to  whose 
sceptre  they  bowed  was  claimed  by  Him  as  His  witness. 

The  announcement  of  Christ  as  the  way  to  the  Father,  as  the 
Truth  with  regard  to  the  way,  and  as  the  Life  which  is  the  ani¬ 
mating  motive  power  of  the  way  of  Christ  as  the  only  way  to  the 
Father,  is  the  burden  of  the  next  citation. 

“John  xiv.  6.  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  am  the  way,  the  truth, 
and  the  life;  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father,  but  by  me.” 

But  the  Inaugural  teaches  that  Martineau  does  come  to  the 
Father;  finds  God  and  divine  certainty  in  another  way  than  by 
Christ,  which  recalls  Tholuck’s  remark  quoted  in  Lange  on 
John,  edited,  revised  and  enlarged  by  Professor  Schaff,  “  And 
so  when  a  man  is  saved  the  Lord  Christ  must  have  a  hand  in  the 
work,”  says  Luther,  rightly  citing  these  words  against  Zwingli, 
who  makes  a  Theseus,  a  Socrates  (the  Inaugural  Addiess 
makes  Martineau)  to  be  saved  even  without  Christ.  But  let  us 
listen  to  the  beloved  Disciple  in  1  Johnv.  10.  “He  that  believeth 
on  the  Son  of  God  hath  the  witness  in  himself:  he  that  believeth 
not  God  hath  made  him  a  liar;  because  he  believeth  not  the 
record  that  God  gave  of  his  Son  ;”  teaching  that  to  reject  the  Bible 
(the  record,  the  testimony  which  God  hath  given  hath  testified, 
concerning  his  Son,  or  to  substitute  anything  for  it  or  even  to 


16 


put  anything  alongside  of  it,  is  to  make  God  (who  according  to 
the  Westminster  Confession  is  truth)  a  liar.  The  man  who  does 
this,  to  quote  Luther  again,  has  told  and  even  tells  God  to  the 
face,  “Thou  best.”  Martineau  declares  that  he  does  not  believe 
the  record  that  God  gave  of  his  Son,  and  yet,  according  to  Speci¬ 
fication  II.,  the  Inaugural  Address  teaches  that  he  found  God 
and  rested  on  divine  authority.  It  was  to  a  company  who  mag¬ 
nified  the  Church — the  devotees  of  ritualism — that  the  Apostle 
Paul  spoke  when  he  said  (Galatians  i :  9),  “as  we  said  before,  so 
say  I  now  again,  If  any  man  preach  any  other  gospel  unto  you 
than  that  ye  have  received,  let  him  be  accursed.”  It  needs  no 
argument,  exposition  or  illustration  of  mine  to  add  to  the  power 
and  solemnity  of  the  fact  that  in  this  text  the  finger  of  God 
touches  the  Inaugural’s  doctrine  (set  forth  in  Specifications  1  ,  2) 
of  the  three-fold  source  of  Divine  Authority,  and  writes  upon  it 
Anathema.  But  read  2  Tim.  iii.  15  to  17.  — 15  And  that  from 
a  child  thou  hast  known  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which  are  able  to 
make  thee  wise  unto  salvation  through  faith  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus.  1 6  All  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  is 
profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction 
in  righteousness:  17  That  the  man  of  God  may  be  perfect, 
thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good  works.  And  do  we  not  find 
that  a  minister  of  the  Church,  one  of  Paul’s  theological  students, 
upon  whom  the  great  apostle  pressed  the  importance  of  thorough 
scholarship,  is  taught  that  the  wisdom  whose  result  is  salvation, 
that  the  Church’s  system  of  doctrine,  her  standard  of  reproof, 
her  law  of  correction,  her  text  book  of  instruction,  her  manual 
of  practical  religion,  is  the  Bible  and  the  Bible  alone. 

The  last  Scriptural  citation  under  Charge  I.  is: 

2  Pet.  i.  19.  We  have  also  a  more  sure  word  of  prophecy 
whereunto  ye  do  well  that  ye  take  heed,  as  unto  a  light  that 
shineth  in  a  dark  place,  until  the  day  dawn,  and  the.daystar 
arise  in  your  hearts. 

2  Pet.  i.  20,  21. — 20  Knowing  this  first,  that  no  prophecy  of 
the  Scripture  is  of  any  private  interpretation,  21  For  the  proph¬ 
ecy  came  not  in  old  time  by  the  will  of  man;  but  holy  men 
of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Peter  introduces  this  statement  by  calling  attention  to  the 


17 


Divine  revelation  to  himself  of  the  divinity,  the  glory,  the  office 
work  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  his  ear  heard  the  voice  and  his 
eye  witnessed  the  glory  of  the  transfiguration.  As  he  speaks  in 
the  name  of  God  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Transfiguration,  he 
is  the  representative  of  the  Church.  As  he  writes,  “  No 
prophecy  of  the  Scripture  is  of  any  private  interpretation,”  he 
contemplates  the  standpoint  of  Reason,  which  reminds  one  of 
the  remark  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  that  “  as  iron  is  almost 
never  found  in  the  earth  pure,  but  usually  in  some  combination, 
as  the  sulphuret  of  iron,  the  oxide  of  iron,  etc.,  so  truth  is  sel¬ 
dom  found  pure  in  human  minds,  but  rather  as  the  Jonesate  of 
truth,  and  the  Brownsite  of  truth.” 

The  Apostle  turns,  however,  from  his  oral  testimony  as  a 
representative  of  the  Church,  and  from  the  Reason  as  it  claims 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  Bible,  to  the  Bible  itself  as  the  foun¬ 
tain  of  divine  authority,  in  the  citation  already  given.* 

Peter  had  not  died  before  he  discerned  the  baleful  influence  of 
false  teachers.  Hence,  he  was  careful  to  devise  a  legacy  to  the 
Church  in  this  written  testimony  of  the  fundamental  truths  of 
the  gospel  opposing  to  error  the  sure  prophetic  word  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  the  Apostolical  eye  and  ear  witness  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  New  Testament.  Had  he  not  heard  Jesus  Christ 
say,  “  I  am  the  Light  of  the  World;  he  that  followeth  me  shall 
not  walk  in  darkness  ”  ?  Our  Lord  thus  told  us  to  take  heed  to 
the  light  that  shineth  in  a  dark  place,  as  the  Bible  Gospel  is 
the  means  by  which  he  brings  life  and  immortality  to  light. 
When  Peter’s  beloved  brother  Paul  wrote  to  the  Philippians, 
“Ye  shine  as  lights  in  the  world,”  he  spoke  of  those  who  take 
heed  unto  the  light  that  shineth  in  a  dark  place  by  holding  forth 
the  word  of  life.  No  mariner  ever  ought  to  watch  the  lighthouse 
more  earnestly  and  faithfully  than  we  life-voyagers,  whether 
sinners  environed  by  the  darkness  of  evil,  or  Christians  with 
sails  set  for  heaven  in  the  shadow  of  earth’s  dark  glass,  should 
take  heed  unto  this  written  inspired  Bible  as  unto  a  light  that 
shineth  in  a  dark  place. 

In  closing  this  exposition  of  Scripture,  I  propose  to  examine 


*  2  Pet.  i.  19-21. 


18 


four  Bible  witnesses  who  have  been  summoned  to  the  stand  to 
show  the  relations  of  the  Bible,  the  Church  and  Reason.  They 
are  the  Ethiopian  Eunuch,  Cornelius,  the  Bereans  and  Apollos. 

(a.)  The  Ethiopian  Eunuch,  Acts  viii.  26-40.  According  to 
Prof.  Schaff  this  man  was  a  heathen  convert  to  Judaism.  The 
story  of  his  conversion  carries  us  through  from  the  darkness  of 
human  reason  to  Jesus  Christ  as  the  light  of  the  soul,  as  starting 
at  heathenism  under  the  guidance  of  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  we 
come  to  worship,  “  from  worship  to  the  study  of  the  Word,  from 
study  to  personal  inquiry,  from  inquiry  to  acceptance.  As  Acts 
8  (32-35)  gives  the  place  of  the  Scripture  which  he  read,  we  have 
the  use  of  the  Bible  as  the  Fountain  of  Divine  Authority.  As  the 
text  which  was  the  subject  of  the  Eunuch’s  inquiry  and  Philip’s 
preaching  is  a  Bible  revelation  of  the  atonement,*  it  is  evident  that 
Philip  affirmed  what  James  Martineau  denies.  The  Eunuch  lis¬ 
tened  as,  with  the  key  of  the  Gospel  narrative,  Philip  unlocked 
the  Old  Testament  prophecy,  and  the  seeking  soul,  enlightened, 
convinced  and  exultant,  found  God  and  Divine  certainty  in  the 
Incarnation,  Atonement,  Resurrection  of  the  Bible  Jesus  Christ 
the  Son  of  God.  Evidently  the  Bible  did  for  the  Eunuch  what 
Church  and  Reason  could  not  do. 

(£.)  Cornelius.  This  Roman,  although  a  devout,  praying,  alms¬ 
giving  heathen  whose  ear  was  open  to  every  voice  of  reason  with 
respect  to  the  questions,  “  What  ami?  Whose  am  I?  Where 
am  I  going?”  had  never  been  able  to  formulate  the  Inaugural’s 
dream  concerning  Martineau.  He  never  felt  that  God  was 
enthroned  in  his  own  soul.  A  voice  from  heaven  told  him  that 
Reason  could  never  do  Peter’s  work,  which  was  to  tell  him  what 
he  ought  to  do.  Peter  told  him  by  simply  expounding  the 
Bible,  and  he  found  out  that  he  ought  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ, 
which  involved  his  acceptance  of  the  Incarnation,  Bible  Miracle, 
Gospel  Narrative,  Crucifixion,  Resurrection,  Final  Judgment,, 
the  cleansing,  redeeming,  sufficient  Atonement. 

Acts  x.  (34-43)  34  Then  Peter  opened  his  mouth,  and  said, 
Of  a  truth  I  perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons:  35  But 
in  every  nation  he  that  feareth  him  and  worketh  righteousness, 
is  accepted  with  him.  36  The  word  which  God  sent  unto  the 
children  of  Israel,  preaching  peace  by  Jesus  Christ:  (he  is  the 


19 


Lord  of  all:)  37  That  word,  I  say,  ye  know,  which  was  pub¬ 
lished  throughout  all  Judea,  and  began  from  Galilee,  after  the 
baptism,  which  John  preached:  38  How  God  anointed  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  power:  who  went  about 
doing  good,  and  healing  all  that  were  oppressed  of  the  devil; 
for  God  was  with  him.  39  And  we  are  witnesses  of  all  things 
which  he  did  both  in  the  land  of  the  Jews  and  in  Jerusalem; 
whom  they  slew  and  hanged  on  a  tree :  40  Him  God  raised 
up  the  third  day,  and  shewed  him  openly:  41  Not  to  all  the 

people,  but  unto  witnesses  chosen  before  of  God,  even  to  us, 
who  did  eat  and  drink  with  him  after  he  rose  from  the  dead. 
42  And  he  commanded  us  to  preach  unto  the  people,  and  to 
testify  that  it  is  he  which  was  ordained  of  God  to  be  the  Judge 
of  quick  and  dead.  43  To  him  give  all  the  prophets  witness, 
that  through  his  name  whosoever  believeth  in  him  shall  re¬ 
ceive  remission  of  sins. 

And  when  Luke  records  Peter’s  story  of  the  centurion’s  con¬ 
version  it  is  as  if  inspiration  had  drawn  the  line  of  erasure 
through  the  Inaugural’s  statements  with  reference  to  Martineau. 
When  Peter  opened  his  discourse  with  the  words  “Of  a  truth  I 
perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons,’’  he  taught  that  this 
Inaugural  had  no  right  to  teach  that  God  would  do  for  James 
Martineau  that  which  he  did  not  do  for  Cornelius,  nor  for  the 
Ethiopian  Eunuch.  If  to  fear  God  and  work  righteousness 
would  have  saved  Cornelius,  what  did  God  mean  when  he  told 
him  to  send  for  Peter?  The  capability  of  being  saved  (the 
thing  that  Peter  means)  through  Christ  is  one  thing.  The 
fitness  to  be  saved  without  Christ  is  another  thing.  The  differen¬ 
tiation  here  is  not  national;  it  is  individual.  The  Bible  does  not 
exclude  James  Martineau  from  the  Evangelical  Church  because 
he  is  an  Englishman.  It  excludes  him  because  he  denies  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  of  the  Son  of  God.  It 
excludes  him  because  he  depreciates  the  means  of  grace  essential 
to  every  one  of  us.  This  is  the  opinion  of  the  average  Christian 
world,  and  hence  it  does  not  lift  Martineau  to  the  plane  of 
Spurgeon.  If  Martineau  be  a  representative  Christian,  then  the 
praying  and  alms  of  Cornelius,  his  message  to  Peter,  the 


20 


preaching  of  the  Apostle,  and  the  joy  of  the  Roman— it  was  all 
a  delusion.* 

(r.)  The  Bereans,  Acts  xvii.  10-12.  If  ever  inquiring  men  con¬ 
fronted  the  Inaugural’s  three  fountains  of  authority,  those  per¬ 
sons  were  the  members  of  the  Berean  congregation  of  Paul  and 
Silas.  There  was  the  Bible  that  they  searched  daily.  There  was 
the  Church  speaking  in  the  Jewish  dispensation  through  the 
synagogue  and  speaking  in  the  Christian  dispensation  through 
Paul  and  Silas.  There  was  Reason  pointing  to  Olympus,  the 
shrine  of  the  Father  of  gods  and  men,  and  speaking  through  the 
philosophies  of  the  day.  In  a  time  of  reason  and  philosophers 
and  critics,  these  Bereans  reasoned  out  of  the  Scriptures.  And 
Paul  must  have  had  them  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  to  the 
Thessalonians. 

1  Thess.  ii.  13.  For  this  cause  also  thank  we  God  without 
ceasing,  because,  when  ye  received  the  Word  of  God  which  ye 
heard  of  us,  ye  received  it  not  as  the  word  of  men,  but,  as  it  is  in 
truth,  the  Word  of  God,  which  effectually  worketh  also  in  you 
that  believe. 

And  so  Luke  completes  the  syllogism  with  the  sentence, 
“Therefore  many  of  them  (the  Jewish  churchmen)  believed: 
also  of  honorable  women  which  were  Greeks  and  of  men  not  a 
few  (Gentiles  who,  although  they  may  have  been  proselytes, 
were  at  some  period  of  their  lives  disciples  of  reason). 

(d.)  Apollos,  Acts  xviii.  24-28.  An  Alexandrian  Jew,  he  must 
have  acquired  that  familiarity  with  the  processes  of  reason  inci¬ 
dent  to  birth  and  growth  in  a  city  famed  for  its  achievements  in 
literature,  philosophy  and  criticism,  and  for  one  of  the  greatest 
libraries  of  the  world.  An  Alexandrian  Jew,  he  must  have  caught 
the  spirit  of  the  circle  that  sent  forth  the  Septuagint  translation 
of  the  Scriptures.  The  record  warrants  the  opinion  that  he  was 
an  expert  in  Biblical  theology.  The  original  gives  us  to  under¬ 
stand  that  he  was  a  careful,  exact,  accurate,  eloquent  and 
learned  instructor  in  the  things  of  the  Lord.  His  lack  did  not 
arise  from  his  position  in  the  Church,  but  from  his  want  of  the 
whole  Bible,  for  he  knew  only  the  baptism  of  John.  The 
Scripture  history  of  John  the  Baptist  proves,  however,  that  this 


*  Lange  on  Acts,  pages  204-205. 


21 


Biblical  Theologian  never  preached  the  Inaugural’s  doctrines  of 
predicted  prophecy  and  that  the  process  of  redemption  from  sin 
was  not  completed  in  this  life.  If  Apollos  had  been  a  member 
of  this  court,  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  he  would  have  • 
answered  the  call  to  a  vote  on  Dr.  George  Alexander’s  resolution 
to  strike  out  Charges  IV.  and  VII.  with  a  positive,  superlative 
John  the  Baptist  No. 

To  which  of  the  three,  Bible,  Church  or  Reason,  did  this 
philosopher,  critic,  theologian,  preacher  point  as  the  fountain 
of  divine  authority?  Certainly  not  to  the  Church,  if  we  are  to 
believe  John  the  Baptist’s  estimate  of  the  Church.  Certainly 
not  to  the  Reason,  because  Reason  failed  him  until  it  laid  hold 
of  the  postulates  of  the  Bible  under  the  teaching  of  Aquila  and 
Priscilla.  The  Bible  stands  out  as  the  one  only  fountain  of  Divine 
Authority  as  Apollos  helped  believers.  “For  he  mightily  con¬ 
vinced  the  Jews  or  (Revised  Version)  powerfully  confuted — or 
(Dr.  Edward  Robinson)  ‘  confuted  utterly  ’  or  (Alford)  ‘  argued 
down,’  as  we  say,  ‘proved  it  in  their  teeth,’  and  that  publicly 
shewing  by  the  Scriptures  that  Jesus  was  Christ.” 

The  statements  of  the  Standards,  as  cited,  lead  directly  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  place  which  the  Inaugural  assigns  to  Reason 
is  not  the  Confession’s  subordination  of  Reason  to  the  Bible. 
The  Confession  teaches  that  it  is  the  office  of  the  Bible  to  help 
the  Reason  to  take  hold  of  facts  which  the  Reason  of  itself  can¬ 
not  fathom,  and  by  the  Reason  I  mean  the  metaphysical  cate¬ 
gories,  the  conscience  and  the  religious  feeling.  The  Bible 
describes  several  of  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  (among 
them  Holy  Trinity,  the  Incarnation,  the  Resurrection  of  the 
body)  (which  Martineau  denies)  as  mysteries.  It  is  the  plan  of  sal¬ 
vation  to  which  Paul  refers  when  he  writes  to  Timothy.  I.  Timo¬ 
thy,  3:16:  “And  without  controversy  great  is  the  mystery  of 
godliness.  God  was  manifest  in  the  flesh,  justified  in  the 
spirit,  seen  of  angels,  preached  unto  the  Gentiles,  believed  on 
in  the  world,  received  up  into  glory.”  So  that  the  mystery  of 
godliness,  is  Christ,  who  is  God  Incarnate.  A  Bible  mystery 
is  properly  defined  as  “  a  revealed  secret.”  The  resurrection, 
the  mutual  relation  of  Christ  and  His  Church,  the  Plan  of  Sal¬ 
vation,  the  Incarnation,  although  mysteries,  are  essential  facts 


22 


which  find  their  reason  in  the  needs  of  the  human  race.  What 
does  the  Bible  say  about  those  needs  ?  The  Epistles  teach 
that  we  are  without  God,  strength,  Christ  and  hope  in  the 
world.  We  are  dead  in  trespasses  and  in  sins,  in  darkness  and 
under  the  power  of  Satan.  Without  the  Resurrection  our 
faith  is  vain.  Without  the  mutual  relation  of  Christ  and  His 
Church  our  Church  relationship  is  a  mere  name.  Without  the 
plan  of  salvation  our  redemption  is  impossible.  Without 
the  Incarnation  we  have  no  Saviour.  Although  we  cannot 
reason  out  these  mysteries,  we  can  reason  out  from  them  as 
the  Bible  declares  them.  The  Inaugural  Address  seems  to 
forget  that  the  revered  teacher  of  its  author,  Prof.  Henry 
B.  Smith,  has  said  “Human  reason  may  indeed  inquire 
whether  the  voice  that  speaks  be  delusive  or  divine;  it 
may  test  the  truth  of  revelation  on  historical  grounds;  it  may 
ask  whether  its  doctrines  be  in  harmony  with  or  contradictory 
to  moral  truth,  to  our  essential  ideas  and  necessary  convictions; 
it  may  inquire  whether  the  problems  it  proposes  to  solve  be  real 
or  imaginary;  but,  having  answered  such  preliminary  inquiries, 
it  has  no  shadow  of  a  right  to  go  to  this  revelation  and  dictate 
to  it  what  it  shall  tell  us  of  God’s  nature  or  what  shall  be  the 
method  of  the  revelation  or  the  redemption,  any  more  than  it 
has  a  right  to  go  to  that  other  reality,  Nature,  and  prescribe  its 
laws  and  limit  its  elements.  In  both  cases  man  is  to  study  and 
to  learn.”* 

Notice  the  contrast  between  the  spirit  of  the  Inaugural  and  the 
first  chapter  of  Dr.  Archibald  Alexander’s  Evidences  of  Christian¬ 
ity,  entitled  ‘  ‘  The  Right  Use  of  Reason  in  Religion.  ”  “In  receiv¬ 
ing,  therefore,”  says  Dr.  Alexander,  “the  most  mysterious  doc¬ 
trines  of  Revelation,  the  ultimate  appeal  is  to  reason,  not  to 
determine  whether  she  could  have  discovered  these  truths;  not 
to  declare,  whether  considered  in  themselves,  they  appear  prob¬ 
able,  but  to  decide  whether  it  is  not  more  reasonable  to  believe 
what  God  speaks  than  to  confide  in  our  crude  and  feeble  con¬ 
ceptions.  Just  as  if  an  unlearned  man  should  hear  an  able 
astronomer  declare  that  the  diurnal  motion  of  the  heaven  is  not 
real,  but  only  apparent;  that  the  sun  is  nearer  to  the  earth  in 

*  Briggs’  Bible  ChurcUand  Reason  (quotation),  page  70. 


23 


Winter  than  in  Summer.  Although  the  facts  asserted  appear  to 
contradict  the  senses,  it  would  be  reasonable  to  acquiesce  in  the 
declarations  made  to  him  by  one  who  understood  the  subject 
and  in  whose  veracity  he  had  confidence.  If,  then,  we  receive 
the  witness  of  men  in  matters  above  our  comprehension,  much 
more  should  we  receive  the  witness  of  God,  who  knows  all 
things  and  cannot  deceive  his  creatures  by  false  declarations. 

Therefore,  I  deny  that  the  wilful  depreciation  of  the  means  of 
grace  is  less  sinful  in  the  case  of  James  Martineau  and  his 
school,  whether  its  members  be  in  England  or  America,  than  it 
is  in  me ;  that  the  use  of  the  means  of  grace  is  less  essential  in 
James  Martineau’s  case  than  in  mine.  In  this  respect  the 
Inaugural  Address  is  false  to  the  Apostolic  Commission.  It 
breathes  the  spirit  of  the  Scotch  Moderatism  that  used  to  perse¬ 
cute  Dr.  Witherspoon,  one  of  the  framers  both  of  our  Church 
and  national  constitutions.  It  follows  in  the  wake  of  the  Uni- 
tarianism  that  leavened  English  Presbyterianism  to  its  death  in 
the  Eighteenth  Century.  It  recalls  the  word  of  Samuel  Hanson 
Cox,  one  of  the  founders  and  long  a  director  of  the  Union  Theo¬ 
logical  Seminary,  suggesting  his  description  of  an  unsound 
minister  to  John  Quincy  Adams,  as  its  doctrines  belong  to  the 
“school  of  Cain  ” ;  f  that  old  founder  of  a  religion  without  a 
Saviour;  as  it  commends  James  Martineau,  who,  according  to 
its  statements,  finds  God  without  a  mediator,  an  atonement  and 
an  Advocate,  with  the  Father  Jesus  Christ  the  Righteous.  The 
Bible  tells  us,  through  the  Apostle  Jude,  of  “reasoning  that  has 
gone  in  the  way  of  Cain.”  Certainly  such  reasoning  is  not  in 
the  way  of  the  Standards  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 

Looking  up  from  what  the  school  of  highei  ci  iticism  desig¬ 
nates  as  the  “ oi polloi"  of  scholarship,  I  would  ventuie  to  assert 
that  James  Martineau,  great  thinker  as  he  is,  could  take  a  lesson 
in  logic  from  Charles  Darwin.  The  latter,  on  June  5th,  1879, 
addressed  a  letter  to  a  young  student  in  a  German  university, 
whose  mind  had  been  unsettled  by  reading  his  books,  which 
reads  as  follows: 

“  Sir, — I  am  very  busy,  and  am  an  old  man  in  delicate  health 


*  Alexander’s  Evidences  of  Christianity,  page  11. 

\  Dr.  S.  H.  Cox’s  Interviews,  Memorable  and  Useful,  page  239. 


I 


24 

and  have  not  time  to  answer  your  questions  fully,  even  assum¬ 
ing  that  they  are  capable  of  being  answered  at  all.  Science  and 
Christ  have  nothing  to  do  with  each  other  except  in  as  far  as 
scientific  investigation  makes  a  man  cautious  about  accepting 
any  proofs.  As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  do  not  believe  that  any 
revelation  has  ever  been  made.  With  regard  to  a  future  life 
every  one  must  draw  his  own  conclusions  from  vague  and  con¬ 
tradictory  probabilities.  Wishing  you  well,  I  remain  your 
obedient  servant,  Charles  Darwin.” 

This  letter  has  been  described  as  “unutterably  sad.”  The 
fact  set  forth  by  Charge  I.  and  its  specifications  makes  the 
Inaugural  Address  “unutterably  sad.” 

But  Reason  executes  a  perfect  syllogism  when  it  lays  hold  of 
the  Bible,  and  hence  of  its  doctrines  as  a  reasonable  book.  No 
book  is  more  rigid  in  its  logic,  or  clearer  in  its  conclusions. 
Reason  meets  the  Bible  with  two  questions:  Does  God  speak? 
What  does  God  say?  Shut  up  to  the  acceptance  of  the  evidences 
of  the  Divine  revelation,  and  analyzing  the  matter  of  that  revela¬ 
tion,  “  Reason  will  convince  any  man,  unless  he  be  of  a  perverse 
mind,  that  the  Scripture  is  the  Word  of  God;  and  then  no 
reason  can  be  greater  than  this — therefore  it  is  true.  ”*  Thus 
Christ  struck  with  dumbness  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes  through 
their  own  Scriptures. 

So  that  we  are  shut  up  to  the  confessional  statement  that  Holy 
Scripture  is  most  necessary.  The  Scripture  citations  show  that 
Isaiah  viii.  6,  taught  that  it  is  as  necessary  as  light  to  the  eye; 
that  Jesus  Christ  taught,  (Matt.  x.  32-33),  that  it  is  necessary 
as  a  revelation  of  Himself  in  order  to  the  confession  of  Himself; 
that  it  is  that  necessary  identical  revelation  (John  v.  39) ;  that 
it  is  so  necessary  as  to  furnish  our  only  chart  for  departure  into 
eternity  (Luke  xvi.  29-31);  that  it  is  necessary  as  a  presentation 
of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  as  the  only  way  to  God  the  Father 
(John  xiv.  6).  It  is  so  necessary  that  to  deny  the  record  it  gives 
of  Christ  is  to  challenge  God’s  integrity  (1  John  v.  10) ;  that  the 
Galatians  were  given  to  understand  that  no  other  Gospel  could 
take  its  place  (Galatians  i.  9) ;  that  it  is  the  only  manual  of  the 


*  Thirty  Thousand  Thoughts,  page  263. 


25 


Christian  worker  (2  Tim.  iii.  16);  that  it  is  the  day-dawn  of 
the  day-star  that  guides  us  to  heaven.  And  when  the  Scriptures 
teach  that  faith  cometh  by  hearing,  and  hearing  by  the  Word  of 
God,*  they  simply  assert  that  the  Holy  Scripture  is  the  rule  of 
faith  and  practice.  So  that  if  faith  be  necessary  the  Holy 
Scripture  is  most  necessary. 

The  “  Acts  of  the  Apostles  ”  presents  Paul  more  than  once  as 
a  reasoner  when  he  preached  the  Gospel.  His  reasoning  con¬ 
cerning  righteousness,  temperance  and  judgment  to  come  made 
Felix  tremble.  His  epistles  abound  in  the  logical,  therefore. 
God  never  reveals  anything  as  true  which  contradicts  any  well- 
authenticated  truth  of  intuition,  experience  or  previous  revela¬ 
tion.  But  this  is  not  to  assert  that  Reason  is  a  fountain  of 
Divine  Authority  (Hebrews  xi.  1).  Faith  is  the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen.  Revised 
Version:  “Faith  is  the  assurance  of  things  hoped  for;  the 
proving  of  things  not  seen.”  Thus  Heaven  itself  declares  that 
Reason’s  fountain  of  authority  is  the  Word  of  God. 

I  pause  here  to  consider  the  contradiction  not  only  of  the 
Scriptures  and  of  the  Standards,  but  of  every  Confession  of 
Evangelical  Christendom  which  is  made  by  the  last  sentence  of 
Specification  II. 

“  Men  are  influenced  by  their  temperaments  and  environments 
which  of  the  three  ways  of  access  to  God  they  may  pursue.” 

Both  the  Scripture  and  the  Standards  assert  that  the  Bible 
presents  but  one  subject,  has  but  one  message  for  every  phase 
of  human  temperament,  for  every  sort  of  human  environment, 
and  that  is  repentance  toward  God  and  faith  toward  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  The  subject  of  every  miracle  of  healing  performed 
by  our  Lord  in  nearly  every  case  had  his  or  her  own  environ¬ 
ment,  yet  in  every  case  there  was  the  same  condition  of  healing, 
“  If  thou  canst  believe.  ”  The  Twelve  Apostles  of  the  Lord  meant 
twelve  peculiarities  of  temper;  yet  John  wrote  (I.  John  2:1),  “If 
any  man  sin  we  have  an  advocate  with  the  Father,  Jesus  Christ, 
the  Righteous.”  This  statement  is  a  denial  of  the  sovereignty  of 
Divine  Grace,  uproots  the  fact  that  justification  is  by  faith  alone, 
contradicts  the  law  of  the  work  of  sanctification  and  hinges  the 


*  Romans,  x.  17. 


26 


possession  of  heaven  on  man’s  good  pleasure.  I  cannot  imagine 
how  any  one  can  read  Romans  vii.  concerning  Paul’s  conflict, 
Hebrews  xii.  concerning  the  weight  and  the  easily-besetting  sin 
that  interfere  with  the  Christian  race  and  not  teach  that  the 
Christian  life  is  a  battle  with  and  a  victory  over  human  tempera¬ 
ment  and  human  environment. 

Charge  II. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America 
charges  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  being  a  minister  of 
the  said  Church  and  a  member  of  the  Presbytery  of  New  York, 
with  teaching  that  the  Church  is  a  fountain  of  Divine  Authority, 
which,  apart  from  the  Holy  Scripture,  may  and  does  savingly 
enlighten  men,  which  is  contrary  to  the  essential  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Scripture  and  of  the  Standards  of  the  said  Church,  that 
the  Holy  Scripture  is  most  necessary  and  the  rule  of  faith  and 
practice. 

The  examination  of  Charge  I.  necessarily  anticipates  much  of 
the  proof  of  Charge  II.  The  attention  of  the  court  is  invited  to 
the  Confessional  citations  which  establish  Charge  II.  In  Chap¬ 
ter  I.,  Section  i,  the  Church  appears,  not  as  a  fountain  of  Divine 
Authority,  but  as  the  receiver,  preserver,  propagator  of  that 
which  flows  from  the  Scripture,  the  fountain  of  Divine  Authority. 
In  Section  V.  the  doctrine  is  that  while  the  Church’s  testimony 
causes  a  “high  and  reverent  esteem  for  the  Holy  Scripture, 
yet  the  Holy  Ghost  alone  can  insure  our  full  persuasion  and 
assurance  of  the  infallible  truth  and  Divine  Authority  thereof. 
Section  VI.  shows  that  the  completeness  of  the  Scripture,  as 
“the  whole  counsel  of  God,”  either  expressly  set  down  or 
deducible  by  good  and  necessary  consequence,  excludes  the 
Church  from  doing  the  work  of  Scripture  and  compels  the 
Church  even  in  those  matters  which  are  left  to  human  judgment 
to  abide  by  its  rules.  Section  VII.  teaches  that  the  Church 
cannot  take  the  place  of  the  Scripture,  which  is  the  supreme 
judge  even  of  itself. 

I'  So  that  both  Scripture  and  Standards  teach  that  the  Church 
is  subordinate  to  the  Bible.  Hence  with  the  Bible  as  the 
Church’s  sole  warrant — as  that  without  which  the  Church  cannot 


2? 


fulfill  its  mission  of  gathering  sinners  into  the  fold  of  Christ 
and  of  preparing  saints  for  heaven ;  as  that  which  so  washes 
away  the  Church’s  earthliness,  that  the  Church  on  earth  becomes 
the  spotless,  unblemished,  unwrinkled,  holy,  glorious  Church  of 
heaven,  it  is  simply  to  twist  logic  clear  out  of  shape  into  shapeless 
fallacy,  to  teach  that  although  a  person  may  strive  never  so 
hard  he  cannot  obtain  the  knowledge  essential  to  salvation 
from  the  Bible,  but  is  compelled  to  turn  away  from  the  Bible 
and  resort  to  the  Church  for  said  knowledge.  And  this  too 
in  the  face  of  Section  IV.  of  Chapter  I.  of  the  Confession,  which 

says : 

IV.  “  The  authority  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  for  which  it  ought 
to  be  believed  and  obeyed,  dependeth  not  upon  the  testimony  of 
any  man  or  church,  but  wholly  upon  God,  (who  is  truth  itself), 
the  author  thereof,  and  therefore  it  is  to  be  received,  because  it 

is  the  word  of  God.” 

True,  the  Church  may  bear  witness  to  the  Scripture  just  as  it 
has  been  said,  “A  subject  may  bear  witness  to  the  identity  of  an 
heir  to  the  crown,  but  the  authority  of  the  Scripture  is  no  more 
derived  from  the  Church  than  that  of  the  king  from  the  subject 
who  proves  that  he  is  the  legal  heir.  ”  *  Institutional  Christianity  is 
the  presence  chamber  of  God  to  no  man  until  the  Bible  which 
makes  the  institution  is  in  it.  I  turn  from  the  Inaugural  s  Car¬ 
dinal  Newman  to  another  famous  churchman,  the  poet  Dante, 
who  evidently  had  an  exact  comprehension  of  the  relation  of 
the  Church  and  Bible: 

“  Christ  said  not  to  his  first  conventicle: 

Go  forth  and  preach  imposture  to  the  world. 

But  gave  them  truth  to  build  on,  and  the  sound  was  mighty  on  their 
lips;  nor  needed  they 
Beside  the  Gospel  other  spear  or  shield, 

To  aid  them  in  their  warfare  for  the  truth.” 

The  Inaugural  certainly  asserts  that  Spurgeon’s  position  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God  is  based  on  the  immovable  rock  of  the  Divine 
Word.  It  certainly  distinguishes  the  position  of  Newman  from 
that  of  Spurgeon  as  it  is  based  upon  the  perversion  of  Christ’s 
word  to  Peter,  as  in  the  Papal  Hierarchy  Peter  s  person  eliminates 


*  A.  A.  Hodge’s  Commentary  on  the  Confession  of  Faith,  pages  57-58 


28 


Peter’s  confession.  I  challenge  the  Inaugural’s  statement  that 
the  average  opinion  of  the  Christian  world  would  not  assign  him 
(Spurgeon)  a  higher  place  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  than  Cardi¬ 
nal  Newman.  I  believe  that  I  voice  the  sentiment  of  the  aver¬ 
age  Christian  world  when  I  say  that  I  think  he  has  a  higher  place 
in  the  Kingdom  of  God  than  Cardinal  Newman.  And  further 
I  believe  that  I  voice  the  sentiment  of  the  average  Christian 
world  when  I  say  that  Spurgeon  fought  a  good  fight,  warred  a 
good  warfare,  when  he,  holding  according  to  the  Inaugural  the 
“  Protestant  position,”  assailed  “the  Church  and  the  Reason  in 
the  interest  of  the  authority  of  Scripture.” 

Skepticism  and  credulity  have  been  called  twin  sisters. 
Charges  I.  and  II.  have  shown  that  Dr.  Briggs  has  attacked  the 
authority  of  the  Bible  in  the  interest  of  the  Reason  and  the 
Church,  as  exhibited  in  the  skepticism  of  Martineau  and  the 
credulity  of  Newman.  Having  attacked  the  authority  of  the 
Bible,  there  was  no  escape  from  that  impugnment  of  its  trust¬ 
worthiness  which  is  made  the  ground  of  Charge  III. 

INSPIRA  TION. 

Charge  III. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America 
charges  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  being  a  Minister  of 
the  said  Presbyterian  Church  and  a  member  of  the  Presbytery 
of  New  York,  with  teaching  that  errors  may  have  existed  in  the 
original  text  of  the  Holy  Scripture,  as  it  came  from  its  authors, 
which  is  contrary  to  the  essential  doctrine  taught  in  the  Holy 
Scripture  and  in  the  Standards  of  the  said  Church,  that  the 
Holy  Scripture  is  the  Word  of  God  written,  immediately  in¬ 
spired,  and  the  rule  of  faith  and  practice. 

I  will  not  read  the  specifications  and  proofs,  unless  called  for. 

Thus  the  Scriptures  affirm  the  authenticity,  the  letter,  the  in¬ 
spiration,  the  inerrancy,  the  infallibility,  the  unity,  the  accu- 
racy,  the  truthfulness  of  God’s  WUrd  written.  The  language 
not  only  of  the  law  but  of  the  messages  of  the  prophets  is  em¬ 
phasized  in  Zechariah  vii.  12. 


29 


i2.  Yea,  they  made  their  hearts  as  an  adamant  stone,  lest 
they  should  hear  the  law,  and  the  words  which  the  Lord  of  hosts 
hath  sent  in  his  Spirit  by  the  former  prophets ;  therefore  came  a 
great  wrath  from  the  Lord  of  hosts. 

The  term  here  rendered  “words”  is  the  plural  of  the  noun  de¬ 
rived  from  the  verb  ( dabar ),  which  according  to  Gesenius’  Lexi¬ 
con,  edited  by  Dr.  Edward  Robinson,*  primarily  signifies  to  set 
in  a  row,  to  range  in  order,  to  lead,  to  guide,  to  drive,  to  follow, 
be  behind,  and  from  the  primary  idea  of  ranging  in  order,  con¬ 
necting,  comes  also,  the  most  frequent  signification  of  this  verb 
to  speak,  properly  to  set  in  order  words,  referring  undoubtedly 
to  the  letters,  which  constitute  the  syllables  and  to  the  syllables 
which  constitute  the  words,  and  to  the  words  which  constitute 
the  sentences.  Our  Lord  refers  to  the  written  Pentateuch  in 
Mark  vii.  13,  when  He  charges  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes  with 
“making  the  Word  of  God  of  none  effect  through  your  tradi¬ 
tion,  which  ye  have  delivered :  and  many  such  like  things  do 
ye.” 

Commenting  on  the  parallel  passage  in  Matthew  xv.  Alford 
considers  this  a  remarkable  testimony  of  our  Lord  to  the  divine 
origin  of  the  Mosaic  law:  not  merely  of  the  Decalogue,  for  the 
second  command  quoted  is  not  in  the  Decalogue,  and  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  where  Matthew  has  0  theos  eneteilato  (God  said) 
Mark  (7:10.)  has  “ Mousees  ripen ,”  Moses  said:  f 

Let  this  Court  observe  how  our  Lord  grasps  the  point  of  the 
question  at  issue,  which  is  the  question  at  issue  in  this  case. 
He  shows  that  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes  substituted  their  writ¬ 
ten  tradition  for  the  written  word  of  God.  In  Geike’s  Life  of 
Christ,  we  read  that  “  Pie  who  expounds  the  Scriptures  in 
opposition  to  the  tradition,”  says  Rabbi  Eleazar,  “  has  no  share 
in  the  world  to  come.”  “It  was  perhaps  good  to  give  one’s 
self  to  the  reading  of  the  Scripture,  but  he  who  reads  diligently 
the  traditions  receives  a  reward  from  God,  and  he  who  gives 
himself  to  the  commentaries  on  these  traditions  has  the  greatest 
reward  of  all.”  “  The  Bible  was  like  water,  the  traditions  like 
wine,  the  commentaries  on  them  like  spiced  wine.”  “  My 

*  Gesenius  Hebrew  Lexicon,  Edited  by  Dr.  Edward  Robinson,  pages  210-21 1. 
f  Alford’s  Greek  Testament,  Vol.  I.,  page  162. 


/ 


30 


Son,”  says  the  Talmud,  “give  more  heed  to  the  rabbis  than 
to  the  Words  of  the  law.”  * 

Let  the  Court  notice  the  specification  under  Charge  III.  If 
it  means  anything  it  shows  that  the  scholarly  critics  of  Christ’s 
day  did  no  more  with  their  tradition  than  some  modern  scholars 
(I  have  seen  a  roll  in  a  book  entitled  “  The  Bible,  Church  and 
Reason,”  which  contains  145  names)  do  with  the  higher  criti¬ 
cism  as  represented  by  the  Inaugural.  Indeed  the  specification 
shows  that  this  Higher  Criticism  uses  precisely  the  same  pro¬ 
cesses  which  Christ  rebukes  in  the  citations  from  Mark  vii. 
The  Inaugural  itself  teaches  that  the  thought  of  an  inerrant 
original  text  is  sheer  assumption  on  which  no  mind  can  rest  with 
certainty — declares  that  if  an  errant  original  text  destroys  the 
authority  of  the  Bible,  it  is  already  destroyed  for  historians — 
ridicules  the  theory  of  an  inerrant  bible  as  “a  ghost  of  modern 
Evangelicalism,  to  frighten  children  ” — asserts  that  Historical 
Criticism  actually  points  out  errors,  asserts  that  these  errors  are 
all  in  the  circumstantials  and  not  in  the  essentials,  and  suspends 
the  fact  of  God’s  providential  superintendence  on  its  author’s 
maybe .  In  view  of  the  Bible  and  the  Standards,  this  court  can  do 
nothing  else  than  relegate  the  Inaugural  to  that  tradition  classi¬ 
fied  by  Christ  as  making  the  word  of  God  of  non-effect.  For  the 
Higher  Criticism  exhibits  itself  in  the  Inaugural  as  at  the  behest 
and  in  the  interests  of  that  traditionalism  of  the  olden  time  with 
which  Jesus  Christ  contended  during  his  earthly  ministry. 

The  first  and  second  chapters  of  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans 
leave  Jew  and  Gentile  alike  subject  to  the  law  of  God,  alike 
under  sin  and  condemnation.  This  conclusion  opens  the  third 
chapter  with  a  question  and  answer  which  simply  make  Charge 
III.  luminous.  Romans  3 :  1-2.  1  What  advantage  then  hath 

the  Jew,  or  what  profit  is  there  of  circumcision  ?  2  Much  every 

way;  chiefly,  because  that  unto  them  were  committed  the 
oracles  of  God. 

If  the  Jew  be  no  better  than  the  Gentile  he  might  well  ask,  in 
view  of  his  past  history,  wherein  he  was  better  off  than  the  Gen¬ 
tile.  Paul  shows  the  point  of  differentiation,  as  he  writes  ‘  ‘  much. 


*Geike’s  Life  of  Christ,  Vol.  II.,  page  206  (Appleton’s  Edition). 


31 


every  way;”  chiefly  because  that  unto  them  were  committed 
(entrusted)  the  oracles  of  God,  which  means  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  Scriptures  as  we  have  them.  But  the  immediate  relation 
of  these  verses  to  this  discussion  hinges  on  the  term  oracle. 
Besides  Paul  in  this  place,  the  protomartyr  Stephen,  designates 
the  writings  of  Moses  (Acts  7,  38),  the  Apostle  Peter  makes 
mention  of  the  Scriptures  which  are  to  be  the  standard  of 
speech  (1  Peter,  4:  11),  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
(Heb.  5:12)  refers  to  the  text  book  of  the  Christian  teacher  by 
the  word  oracle,  Stephen  calling  them  the  lively  oracles,  and 
the  other  two  designating  them  the  oracles  of  God .  The  fact  that 
Paul  was  a  Greek  scholar,  Stephen  a  Hellenistic  Jew,  and  that 
Peter  wrote  at  a  time  when  Greece  gave  tone  to  the  expression  of 
thought,  will  show  that,  what  the  oracle  was  to  the  ancient 
Greek,  so,  according  to  the  inspired  Paul,  the  inspired  Stephen 
(along  with  his  reporter,  the  inspired  Luke)  and  the  inspired 
Peter,  was  the  Bible  to  be  to  every  son  and  daughter  of  Adam. 

Now,  if  the  Grecian  oracle  emphasized  anything,  it  was  the 
speech,  the  utterance,  the  words,  the  language  of  an  authority 
which  was  divine,  an  idea  to  which  poetry  has  given  expression. 

“  O  where  Dodona!  is  thine  ancient  grove? 

Prophetic  fount  and  oracle  divine? 

What  valley  echoed  the  response  of  Jove? 

What  trace  remaineth  of  the  Thunderer’s  Shrine?” 

The  Holy  Ghost  intended  the  popular  meaning  of  the  word 
when  He  called  the  Bible  an  oracle,  and  that  it  was  the  voice  of 
Divine  Authority  is  clearly  apparent  from  the  following,  found 
in  Grote’s  “History  of  Greece,”  Volume  II.,  pages  255-256. 

Volume  II.  (Pages  255-256) :  “  Delphi  and  Dodona  appear  in 
the  most  ancient  circumstances  of  Greece  as  universally  vener¬ 
ated  oracles  and  sanctuaries ;  and  Delphi  not  only  receives  hon¬ 
ors  and  donations,  but  also  answers  questions  from  Lydians, 
Phrygians,  Etruscans,  Romans,  &c.  It  is  not  exclusively  Hel¬ 
lenic.  One  of  the  valuable  services  which  a  Greek  looked  for 
from  this  and  other  great  religious  establishments  was,  that  it 
should  resolve  his  doubts  in  cases  of  perplexity,  that  it  should 
advise  him  whether  to  begin  anew  or  to  persist  in  an  old  project, 
that  it  should  foretell  what  would  be  his  fate  under  given  cir- 


32 


•cumstances  and  inform  him  if  suffering  under  distress  on  what 
condition  the  gods  would  grant  him  relief.  We  shall  have  con¬ 
stant  occasion  to  notice  in  this  history  with  what  complete  faith 
both  the  question  was  put  and  the  answer  was  treasured  up — 
what  serious  influence  it  often  exercised  both  upon  public  and 
private  proceeding.  This  habit  of  consulting  the  oracle  formed 
part  of  the  general  tendency  of  the  Greek  mind  to  undertake 
no  enterprise  without  having  first  ascertained  how  the  gods 
viewed  it  and  what  measures  they  were  likely  to  take.  To  sacri¬ 
fice  with  a  view  to  this  or  that  undertaking,  or  to  consult  the 
oracle  with  the  same  view,  are  familiar  expressions  embodied  in 
the  language.  Nor  could  any  man  set  about  a  scheme  with 
comfort  until  he  had  satisfied  himself  in  some  manner  or  other 
that  the  gods  were  favorable  to  it.  The  disposition  here  ad¬ 
verted  to  is  one  of  those  mental  analogies  pervading  the  whole 
Hellenic  nation,  which  Herodotus  indicates.  And  the  common 
habit  among  all  Greeks,  of  respectfully  listening  to  the  oracle 
of  Delphi,  will  be  found  on  many  occasions  useful  in  maintain¬ 
ing  unanimity  among  men  not  accustomed  to  obey  the  same 
political  superior.” 

Grote’s  History  of  Greece,  Vol.  IV.,  pages  405-409,  gives  a 
vivid  narration  of  the  efforts  of  the  Athenians  to  interpret  the 
utterances  of  the  Delphian  oracle  at  the  time  of  the  invasion 
of  Xerxes. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  Paul,  Stephen,  Luke  and  Peter  called 
the  Scriptures  the  oracles  of  God,  for  if  the  Grecian  oracle  was 
autocratic  authority  in  the  conception  of  every  Greek,  there  is 
no  higher  law,  no  co-equal  authority  with  the  Bible’s  “Thus 
saith  the  Lord,”  which  is  God's  word  written .  If  the  Grecian 
oracle  was  the  centre  of  Hellenistic  Unity,  so  this  Bible  is  the 
centre  of  humanity’s  thought  concerning  its  relation  to  God, 
whether  ecclesiastical  or  rational.  Dr.  Schaff  appropriately 
says  (Lange  on  Romans,  3,  2,  page  116):  “The  Apostle,  in 
calling  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  the  oracles  of  God,  clearly 
recognizes  them  as  divinely  inspired  books.  The  Jewish  Church 
was  the  trustee  and  guardian  of  these  oracles,  till  the  Coming 
of  Christ.  Now  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
are  entrusted  to  the  guardianship  of  the  Christian  Church.”  The 


33 


last  two  clauses  of  this  quotation  are  very  significant  in  the 
light  of  the  present  discussion.  If  the  Church  be  the  trustee 
and  guardian  of  the  Bible  it  can  only  discharge  that  trust,  or 
do  its  work  as  guardian  as  it  preserves  and  defends  the  letter  of 
the  Word  of  God.  The  instructors  who  subscribe  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Inaugural  Address  might  do  well  to  consider 
Hebrews  5:12:  ‘  For  when  for  the  time  ye  ought  to  be  teachers 
ye  have  need  that  one  teach  you  again,  which  be  the  first 
principles  of  the  oracles  of  God.’  ” 

There  is  a  categorical  statement  of  verbal  inspiration  in 

1  Cor.  ii.  12,  14. — 13  Which  things  also  we  speak,  not  in  the 
words  which  man’s  wisdom  teacheth,  but  which  the  Holy  Ghost 
teacheth ;  comparing  spiritual  things  with  spiritual. 

So  that  while  Bible  inspiration  is  verbal  inspiration,  yet  that 
inspiration  is  not  merely  mechanical.  The  Bible  writers  were 
not  machines.  No  sane  man  thinks  himself  a  machine.  His 
free-agency  will  assert  itself.  You  know  that  while  man  is  not 
a  machine,  God  controls  his  thoughts.  Why  should  He  not 
control  his  language?  The  meaning  is  that  your  Bible  is  what 
it  is  as  to  form  of  word,  because  God  the  Holy  Ghost  deter¬ 
mined  that  it  should  be  so. 

When  Paul  wrote  to  the  Galatians : 

8  And  the  Scripture,  foreseeing  that  God  would  justify  the 
heathen  through  faith,  preached  before  the  gospel  unto  Abra¬ 
ham,  saying,  In  thee  shall  all  nations  be  blessed, 
he  simply  based  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  on  the 
Scripture — the  writing,  the  letter — the  verbal  inspiration  of 
Genesis  12 :  1-3. 

Now  the  Lord  had  said  unto  Abram,  Get  thee  out  of  thy 
country,  and  from  thy  kindred,  and  from  thy  father’s  house, 
unto  a  land  that  I  will  shew  thee: 

2  And  I  will  make  of  thee  a  great  nation,  and  I  will  bless 
thee,  and  make  thy  name  great;  and  thou  shalt  be  a  blessing: 

3  And  I  will  bless  them  that  bless  thee,  and  curse  him  that 
curseth  thee:  and  in  thee  shall  all  families  of  the  earth  be 
blessed. 

And  Gen.  18:17-19. 


34 


17  And  the  Lord  said,  Shall  I  hide  from  Abraham  that  thing 
which  I  do : 

1 8  Seeing  that  Abraham  shall  surely  become  a  great  and 
mighty  nation,  and  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  shall  be  blessed 
in  him? 

19  For  I  know  him  that  he  will  command  his  children  and  his 
household  after  him,  and  they  shall  keep  the  way  of  the  Lord, 
to  do  justice  and  judgment;  that  the  Lord  may  bring  upon 
Abraham  that  which  he  hath  spoken  of  him. 

The  direct  connection  of  the  Holy  Ghost  with  the  language  of 
Scripture  is  positively  asserted  in  2  Pet.  i.  (20-21): 

20  Knowing  this  first  that  no  prophecy  of  the  Scripture  is  of 
any  private  iuterpretation. 

21  For  the  prophecy  came  not  in  old  time  by  the  will  of  man; 
but  holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

Alford  declares  the  sense  to  be  that  “  prophecy  springs  not  out 
of  human  interpretation ,”  i.  e.f  is  not  a  prognostication  made  by  a 
man  who  knows  what  he  means  when  he  utters  it,  “  but,  &c.”  * 
Or  it  may  be  explained  by  saying  that  no  prophecy  is  of  any 
man’s  individual  interpretation  of  the  mind  of  God  respecting 
the  future.  The  genesis  of  prophecy  is  not  psychological. 
Prophecy  is  of  Divine  origin  and,  therefore,  not  a  shrewd  guess, 
nor  uncertain,  nor  fallible. 

The  closing  Scripture  citation  to  sustain  Charge  III.  is 

2  Tim.  iii.  16.  All  Scripture  is  given  by  inspiratiou  of  God, 
and  is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for 
instruction  in  righteousness. 

The  rendering  of  the  Revised  Version,  “Every  Scripture 
inspired  of  God,”  is  alike  with  the  rendering  of  the  Authorized 
Version  an  affirmation  of  God’s  Word  written.  The  imme¬ 
diate  reference  is  undoubtedly  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  to  the  Old 
Testament  which  Timothy  had  known  from  a  child. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  Revised  Version  of  the  text  is 
incorrect  is  evident  from  the  following  summary  of  evidence: 
(1)  The  revisers  condemned  their  own  version  by  putting  the 

*  Alford’s  Greek  Testament,  Vol.  IV.,  page  401. 


35 


authorized  text  in  the  margin,  for  certainly  “All  Scripture  is 
given  by  inspiration  of  God”  is  not  the  equivalent  of  “every 
Scripture  inspired  of  God.”  (2)  The  Greek  Fathers,  whose 
knowledge  of  the  original  language  of  the  New  Testament  must 
be  granted,  set  their  seal  to  the  Authorized  Version,  as  we 
may  learn  from  such  men  as  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen, 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Chrysostom,  Theodoret,  Basil,  Cyril.  (3)  The 
peers  of  the  best  scholars  of  modern  times  refuse  to  give  up 
the  Authorized  Version,  among  others  Bishops  Moberly, 
Wordsworth  and  Archbishop  Trench  of  the  Revision  Committee, 
Dean  Burgon,  Dr.  Scribner  and  Dr.  Tregelles.  The  Revised 
Version  according  to  Dean  Burgon  is  “  a  calamitous  literary 
blunder,”  and  according  to  Dr.  Scrivener  “  a  blunder  such  as 
makes  itself  hopelessly  condemned.”* 

As  to  the  confessional  testimony  to  Charge  III.,  the  Court  will 
notice  that  in  Chapter  I.,  as  Section  I.  teaches  that  the  Lord  com¬ 
mitted  the  Bible  to  writing, as  Section  II.  styles  the  Bible  the  Word 
of  God  written  ;  calls  by  name  the  66  books  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  affirming  that  they  are  our  inspired  rule  of  faith 
and  practice,  as  Section  IV.  declares  that  God,  the  author,  is 
truth  itself,  a  doctrine  is  proclaimed  concerning  the  “  Word  of 
God  written,”  which  is  not  found  in  the  Inaugural,  and  espe¬ 
cially  in  the  Specification  under  Charge  III.  When  the  author 
of  the  Inaugural  ventures  to  affirm  that  there  are  errors  in  the 
Scriptures,  he  ventures  to  contradict  the  a  priori  universal  neces¬ 
sary  prime  postulate  that  God  cannot  lie.  If  the  66  books  are 
inspired,  the  distinction  which  the  author  of  the  Inaugural  makes 
between  what  he,  by  private  interpreration,  calls  the  essential 
and  the  circumstantial,  involves  the  supposition  that  inspiration 
makes  the  Holy  Ghost  an  active  or  a  silent  partner  in  a  lie.  We 
can  only  give  up  the  circumstantial  of  Scripture  so  summarily 
ruled  out  by  the  Inaugural  when  we  lose  confidence  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ’s  truthfulness.  Every  historical  statement  of  the 
Bible  is  a  chain  of  circumstances.  I  cannot  look  upon  such  a 
partial  limited  theory  of  inspiration  without  propounding  the 
inquiry : 

Where  does  this  line  of  argument  place  the  author  of  the 


*  Highest  Critics  (Munhall),  pages  24-27. 


36 


Inaugural  Address?  I  answer  (i)  He  has  subscribed  to  the  Con¬ 
fession  which  names  the  66  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa¬ 
ments  as  inspired  of  God.  (2)  He  has  declared  that  the  Bible 
is  not  inerrant  but  errant.  (3)  He  has  declared  that  the  errors 
are  not  merely  by  literary  transcription,  but  the  result  of 
original  composition.  These  propositions  cannot  be  turned  aside 
from  the  conclusion  that  inspiration  does  not  necessarily 
guarantee  inerrancy ,  1.  e. ,  the  whole  Bible  is  inspired  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  but  a  part  of  it  is  untrue.  Such  is  not  the 
deliverance  of  the  last  General  Assembly. 

This  Bible  is  God’s  book.  God  is  the  thinker  of  its  thought. 
And  as  language  is  the  expression,  the  manifestation,  not  the 
mere  dress  of  thought,  God  is  the  arranger  of  its  clauses,  the 
chooser  of  its  terms  and  the  speller  of  its  words,  so  that  the  text, 
in  its  letters,  words  or  clauses,  is  just  as  divine  as  the  thought. 
There  is  a  pretty  general  agreement  with  reference  to  the  Bible 
as  to  its  divine  idea.  The  divergence  commences  as  to  the 
Bible’s  divine  speech.  And  while  I  insist  on  its  divine  speech, 

I  at  the  same  time  insist  on  my  denial  of  the  mechanical  theory 
of  inspiration.  I  want  to  draw  an  illustration  from  the  title 
deed  of  a  piece  of  property  and  from  the  chart  of  navigation.  To 
discover  the  intention  of  the  grantor  of  a  deed  of  conveyance  no 
one  thinks  of  ignoring  what  the  document  says.  The  witnesses 
to  the  deed  will  only  testify  that  they  signed  what  is  there  writ¬ 
ten.  The  navigator’s  chart  simply  prints,  if  you  please,  the  fact 
which  the  coast  surveyor’s  mind  apprehended,  and  the  rock  must 
remain  hidden  to  the  mariner  unless  the  point  on  the  chart  indi¬ 
cates  its  locality.  Hence,  to  assert  that  in  the  Bible  God  does 
not  tell  us  what  he  thinks  is  to  say  that  the  grantor  of  a  title 
deed  can  satisfy  the  grantee  with  a  sheet  of  white  paper,  or  that 
a  coast  surveyor  can  give  the  mariner  the  result  of  his  work 
without  a  chart.  Thus  common  sense  dissolves  into  utter 
nothingness  the  assumption  that  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  is 
confined  to  the  concept,  which  really  means  the  same  thing  as  the 
terms,  notion,  idea,  purpose.  But  let  the  Bible  speak  for  itself. 
From  Genesis  to  Revelation  it  springs  to  the  defense  of  its 
divine  words.  Our  Bible  term  “Scripture”  is  Kethab  in  the 


37 


original  Hebrew  and  graphee  (noun)  from  grapho  (verb)  in  the 
original  Greek. 

I  think  it  very  fortunate,  Mr.  Moderator,  that  in  determining 
the  significance  of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  terms  rendered  into 
English  by  the  word  Scripture  we  can  consult  as  our  authority 
one  whom  not  only  Union  Seminary,  but  the  Christian  world 
loves  to  honor,  and  whose  name  has  been  given  to  the  Chair 
whose  institution  was  the  occasion  of  the  Inaugural.  I  refer  to 
Dr.  Edward  Robinson,  the  editor  of  the  Hebrew  Lexicon  of 
Gesenius  and  of  a  Greek  and  English  Lexicon  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment.  Dr.  Robinson  designated  the  philological  works  of  Gese¬ 
nius  as  a  specimen  of  what  may  be  termed  the  historico-logical 
method  of  lexicography,  which  first  investigates  the  primary 
and  native  signification  of  a  word,  and  then  deduces  from  it  in 
logical  order  the  subordinate  meanings  and  shades  of  sense,  as 
found  in  various  constructions  and  in  the  usage  of  different  ages 
and  writers,  which  in  short  presents  a  logical  and  historical  view 
of  each  word  in  all  its  varieties  of  signification  and  construction.* 
“  This,  ”  says  Dr.  Robinson,  ‘  ‘  is  doubtless  the  only  true  method.  ” 
Now,  Gesenius’  Lexicon,  edited  by  Dr.  Robinson,  “Ke.thab,” 
in  Hebrew,  Arabic,  Chaldaic,  Syriac,  Samaritan,  means  to  write. 
Ethiopic  letter  book.  The  primary  idea  is  to  cut  into,  grave, 
since  the  earliest  writing  was  probably  graven  on  stones.  To 
write,  Ezra  4:7,  referring  to  the  letter  which  the  enemies  of  the 
Jews  wrote  to  Artaxerxes.  To  write  words,  discourses,  Deuter¬ 
onomy  10:2,  as  Moses  tells  the  story  of  the  tables  of  stone, 
Deuteronomy,  17:18,  where  the  King  was  to  write  him  a  copy 
of  the  law.  To  write  a  book  or  record,  Exodus,  32:32:  as 
Moses  speaks  of  the  Book  that  God  has  written,  II.  Samuel, 
11:14.  The  letter  that  David  wrote  Joab,  concerning  Uriah, 
the  Hittite  Job,  31:35.  That  word  of  Job,  which  is  one  of  our 
most  familiar  proverbs,  “That  mine  adversary  had  written  a 
book,”  Jeremiah,  36:27.  Jeremiah’s  celebrated  roll,  which 
Jehudi  cut  with  his  penknife,  ip)  The  material  or  book  upon 
which  one  writes.  Chron.  20:29;  the  acts  of  David,  as  written 
in  the  books  of  the  seers,  Samuel,  God  and  Nathan,  the  prophet. 
To  inscribe,  Isaiah,  44:5.  “Another  shall  subscribe  with  his 


*  Gesenius’  Hebrew  Lexicon  (Robinson),  Preface,  page  4. 


38 


hand  unto  the  Lord,”  in  allusion  to  the  ancient  custom  by  which 
servants  bore  the  names  of  their  masters;  “  soldiers,  those  of 
their  generals;  idolators,  those  of  their  idols,  cut  or  burnt  in 
upon  the  forehead,  hand,  wrist.”  (c)  The  instrument,  stylus, 
in  connection,  Is.  8:1.  “  Take  thee  a  great  roll  and  write  in 

it  with  a  man’s  pen,  concerning  Maher-shalal-hash-baz.  (d) 
Connected  with  the  person  to  or  for  whom  one  writes,  II.  Kings, 
io  ;6.  Jehu’s  letter  to  the  rulers  of  Samaria,  concerning  Ahab’s 
seventy  sons.  ( e )  To  write  of  or  concerning  any  one,  Ps.  4o:7- 
“  In  the  volume  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me.” 

(2)  To  write  down.  Neh.  33:2.  “And  Moses  wrote  their 

goings  out  according  to  their  journe)Ts. 

(3)  To  write  up,  to  inscribe  in  a  register.  Ps.  87:6.  “The 
Lord  shall  count  when  he  writeth  up  the  people  that  this  man 
was  born  there.  ” 

(4)  To  write  about,  to  describe.  Joshua  18:4,  6,  8.  The 
survey  commanded  by  Joshua.  The  Domesday  Book. 

(5)  To  write  or  record  a  sentence,  edict  or  decree.  Isaiah 

65:6.  “It  is  written  before  me.  ” 

(6)  To  write  or  record  a  law,  to  prescribe.  II.  Kings  22:  13. 

Josiah  and  the  law. 

Under  the  noun  we  have  the  definition,  a  document,  book, 
Dan.  10:21.  The  Book  of  Truth  in  which  God’s  decrees  are 

written.* 

Now  when  we  come  to  the  New  Testament  we  should  bear  in 
mind  the  statement  of  Dr.  Robinson  in  the  preface  to  his  Lexi¬ 


con,  that  the  New  Testament  was  written  by  Hebrews,  aim¬ 
ing  to  express  Hebrew  thoughts,  conceptions,  feelings,  in  the 
Greek  tongue. ”f  In  that  Lexicon  we  read  that  the  verb  grapho 
means  (1)  to  write,  to  form  letters,  which  was  usually  done  with 
a  stylus,  so  that  the  letters  were  graven  or  scratched  upon  the 
material.  II.  Thessalonians  3:17.  “The  salutation  of  Paul  with 
mine  own  hand  which  is  the  token  in  every  epistle :  so  I  write,” 


i,  e.,  “this  is  my  handwriting.” 

(2)  To  write  down  anything.  John  20:30-31. 
written,”  &c.,  declarations,  promises,  prophecies. 


“  These  are 
I.  Cor.  10:11. 


*  Gesenius’  Hebrew  Lexicon  (Robinson),  pages  (495  49 D- 
f  Robinson’s  Lexicon  of  the  New  1  estament,  Preface,  page  6. 


39 


‘‘Now  all  these  things.  .  .  .  are  written  for  our  admonition, 
&c.  Here  belong  the  formulas  of  quotation  from  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment.  To  prepare  in  writing.  Matt.  27:37.  The  superscrip¬ 
tion  of  the  Cross. 

(3)  To  write  to  any  one.  II.  Pet.  3:15.  “  Our  beloved  Paul 

according  to  the  wisdom  given  unto  him  (the  concept),  hath 
written  unto  you.”  Very  frequent  in  the  Epistles.  The  noun 
graphee ,  a  writing,  is  the  Greek  word  for  our  English  terms 
Scripture,  the  noun  gramma  being  rendered  so  but  once.  II. 
Timothy  3:15.  * 

So  says  Dr.  Edward  Robinson,  and  I  have  found  nothing  in 
the  analytical  Hebrew  and  analytical  Greek  Lexicons,  published 
by  the  Bagsters,  to  modify  or  change  his  statements. 

Now  all  this  proves  nothing  if  it  does  not  show  that  it  is  God’s 
mind  that  we  should  subscribe  to  the  divinity  of  the  letter  no 
less  than  the  thought  of  the  Bible.  In  this  sense,  the  Bible  as  a 
book  is  something  more  than  mere  print,  as  its  words  tell  the 
story  of  Redemption — as  its  words  are  not  such  a  development 
of  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  into  German  and  English,  as  to 
destroy  the  significance  of  the  original  tongues. 

So  that  Paul  wrote  to  Timothy,  “From  a  child  thou  hast 
known  the  Holy  Writ.”  Jesus  stands  up  in  the  synagogue  of 
Nazareth  and  reads  the  words  of  Isaiah  to  say,  “This  day  is 
this  writing  fulfilled  in  your  ears.”  Jesus  explained  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  words  of  Moses,  of  the  prophets  and  of  the  Psalms 
when  he  opened  to  the  two  disciples  on  the  way  to  Emmaus  the 
writings:  “Search  the  writings,”  says  the  Man  of  Nazareth 
to  the  caviling  Jews.  “All  the  writings,”  says  Paul,  “are 
given  by  inspiration  of  God.”  A  somewhat  celebrated  Scripture 
student  has  remarked  “  that  the  whole  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
turns  on  the  meaning  of  a  single  word  (dikaiosunee)  righteous¬ 
ness,  whose  definition  is  given  in  Romans  3:25-26,  and  that 
there  are  five  thousand  instances  in  both  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  where  most  important  distinctions  hang  upon  the 
choice  of  a  word,  and  even  upon  the  delicate  shading  of 
meaning  which  distinguishes  two  words.” 

Dr.  Vincent  says  that  a  thorough  comprehension  of  Scripture 


*  Robinson’s  Lexicon  of  the  New  Testament,  pages  (1 52-1 53). 


40 


takes  in  the  warp  no  less  than  the  woof.  See  John  17:  8,  14, 
17,  20,  as  our  Lord  emphasizes  the  letter  of  Scripture. 

The  most  cursory  reader  of  the  Bible  can  scarcely  fail  to 
notice  the  emphasis  it  places  upon  its  very  words.  Just  as  the 
sky  at  night  is  written  all  over  with  stars,  so  is  the  Bible  written 
all  over  with  the  kindred  phrases,  ‘‘God  said,”  “The  Lord 
spake,”  “Thus  saith  the  Lord,”  “  The  word  of  God,”  “The 
word  of  the  Lord,”  “The  ingrafted  word.”  Peter’s  work  on 
the  Day  of  Pentecost  is  summed  up  in  the  statement:  “And 
with  many  other  words  did  he  testify  and  exhort,  saying,  Save 
yourselves  from  this  untoward  generation.”  The  angels  stand 
before  Cornelius  to  say,  “  Send  men  to  Joppa  and  call  for  Simon 
whose  surname  is  Peter,  who  shall  tell  thee  words  whereby  thou 
and  all  thy  house  must  be  saved.”  God’s  last  word  in  the  Bible 
is  an  environment  of  the  integrity  of  its  letter.  “For  I  testify 
unto  every  man  that  heareth  the  words  of  the  prophecy  of  this 
book.  If  any  man  shall  add  unto  these  things  God  shall  add 
unto  him  the  plagues  that  are  written  in  this  book ;  and  if 
any  man  shall  take  away  from  the  words  of  the  book  of  this 
prophecy,  God  shall  take  away  his  part  out  of  the  book  of  life 
and  out  of  the  holy  city,  and  from  the  things  which  are  written 
in  this  book.  ” 

But  we  may  be  told  that  this  statement  in  the  Apocalypse 
refers  to  the  Book  of  Revelation  alone.  If  we  grant  the  asser¬ 
tion,  the  statement  loses  nothing  of  its  force  or  significance. 
Any  reference  Bible  will  show  the  citation  of  nearly  every  other 
if  not  of  every  other  book  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  Book  of  Revela¬ 
tion.  Let  any  one  look  for  himself  and  he  will  find  the  mere 
reading  suggesting  parallels  as  he  goes  along.  Let  us  put 
this  passage  along  with  Matthew  v.  19: 

“Whosoever  therefore  shall  break  one  of  these  least  com' 
mandments,  and  shall  teach  men  so,  he  shall  be  called  the  least 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven:  but  whosoever  shall  do  and  teach 
them,  the  same  shall  be  called  great  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.” 

And  with  Deuteronomy  iv.  2 : 

“Ye  shall  not  add  unto  the  word  which  I  command  you, 
neither  shall  ye  diminish  aught  from  it,  that  ye  may  keep  the 


41 


commandments  of  the  Lord  your  God  which  I  command 
you.  ” 

And  with  Deuteronomy  xii.  32  : 

“What  thing  soever  I  command  you,  observe  to  do  it;  thou 
shalt  not  add  thereto,  nor  diminish  from  it.” 

Thus  we  find  that  the  autocracy  of  God’s  word  written  is  so 
absolute  as  not  to  permit  us  to  add  to  or  take  from  the  words 
of  this  Bible,  the  unit,  the  whole  of  which  Deuteronomy,  Mat¬ 
thew  and  Revelation  are  three  of  the  parts. 

In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  Jesus  Christ  not  only  denies 
the  statement  of  the  Inaugural  that  there  is  nothing  divine  in 
the  letters,  words  and  clauses  of  the  Bible,  but  He  goes  further 
than  that.  Listen  to  Him.  “Think  not  that  I  am  come  to 
destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets!  I  am  not  come  to  destroy  but 
to  fulfill.  For  verily  I  say  unto  you,  Till  heaven  and  earth  pass 
one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law  until  all 
be  fulfilled.”  Bishop  Ellicott  says,  “The  ‘jot’  is  the  Greek 
iota,  the  Hebrew  yod,  the  smallest  of  all  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet.  The  tittle  was  one  of  the  smaller  strokes  or  twists  of 
other  letters,  such,  for  example,  as  distinguished  Delta  from  Rho, 
or  Kappa  from  Beta.”  It  was  possible  by  the  neglect  or  misuse 
of  the  jot  or  tittle  to  turn  truth  into  nonsense  or  blasphemy. 

Hence,  if  the  law  is  of  a  piece  with  the  whole  Bible,  there  can 
be  nothing  superfluous  or  insignificant  in  that  Bible.  The  jot  and 
tittle  are  as  divine  as  the  concepts.  The  Inaugural’s  line  of  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  essentials  and  the  circumstantials  is  pro¬ 
nounced  by  the  Bible  to  be  an  error.  You  cannot  separate  as  to 
divine  inspiration  between  the  religion,  faith  and  morals  of  the 
Bible  and  its  other  characteristics,  e.  g.,  language,  geography, 
history.  If  we  cannot  trust  the  ipsisima  verba  of  the  Divine 
writings  when  we  want  to  learn  the  Divine  will,  what  is  there, 
asks  another,  that  we  can  trusts  And  he  goes  on  to  say: 

“One  jot,  on  e  yod,  a  little  thing  that  is  not  a  letter  in  itself 
so  much  as  the  adjunct  and  helper  of  some  other  letter — a  yot, 
a  silent  thing.  The  name  of  the  wife  of  Abraham  was  turned 
from  Sarai  to  Sarah,  and  it  was  th  e  yod  that  did  it;  it  was  that 
little  silent  insignificant  adjunct  that  turned  her  into  Princess. 
God  is  careful  of  yod,  or  yot,  or  jot.  He  does  not  dot  His  i  for 


42 


nothing,  nor  cross  His  t  merely  for  decoration.”  If  the  jot,  the 
tittle,  the  iota,  the  subscript,  the  accent,  the  breathing  point  be 
essential  in  God’s  plan,  what  must  we  say  of  an  attempt  to  wipe 
out  the  letters,  words,  clauses,  circumstantials  of  God  s  written 

word? 

The  prominence  of  the  human  ear  as  a  factor  of  redemption 
lifts  the  language  of  the  Bible  to  the  pedestal  of  inspiration. 
The  door  of  responsibility  opens  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
reaches  the  climax  of  application  in  the  phrase,  “Whosoever 
heareth  these  sayings  of  mine,”  “The  Parable  of  the  Sower 
presents  man  in  four  aspects  as  a  hearer.  Down  comes  from 
heaven  the  warning.  Take  heed  what  ye  hear.  Seven  letters 
have  come  from  the  great  white  throne,  every  one  of  which  bears 
the  postscript:  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit 
saith  unto  the  churches. 

Dr.  Briggs  cannot  escape  the  logic  of  the  skeptic,  who  says: 
•“  Any  thoughtful  person  will  see  that  the  moment  you  begin  to 
doubt  the  verbal  inspiration,  the  literal  accuracy  of  the  Scrip¬ 
tures,  you  start  on  a  road  which  will  logically  lead  you  to  reject 
the  Scriptures  entirely  as  a  book  of  divine  revelation,  or  go  back 
to  the  theory  of  verbal  inspiration.  There  is  no  logical  stopping 
place  between  verbal  inspiration  and  no  inspiration.  If  you  admit 
that  a  single  word  or  even  line  of  the  Bible  was  not  directly 
dictated  by  God,  the  authority  of  the  book  is  overthrown,  for 
by  making  this  admission  you  decide  that  human  reason  may 
sit  in  judgment  on  the  word  of  God,  which  is  absurd. 

So  the  Bible  as  God’s  book  teaches  that  the  concept  without 
the  word  to  manifest  it  is  an  unknown  quantity  a  lamp  with¬ 
out  a  light,  a  messenger  without  a  message.  What  would  we 
know  of  Shakespeare’s  concept  without  his  imperishable  sen¬ 
tences  ?  Of  Edmund  Burke’s  concept  without  his  polished 
periods?  Of  Walter  Scott’s  concept  without  the  word  creations 
of  the  Waverley  Novels?  Of  Longfellow’s  concept  without  the 
Village  Blacksmith,  the  Psalm  of  Life  and  Hiawatha?  What 
would  we  know  of  the  Bible  concept  of  man  s  fallen  condition 
if  it  were  not  for  the  story  of  Eden  (and  it  is  no  cunningly 
devised  fable  either),  of  Sinai,  of  Bethlehem  and  of  Calvary? 
What  would  we  know  of  the  Bible  concept  of  faith  and 


repentance  if  it  were  not  for  the  histories  of  which  the  Eleventh 
Chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  an  epitome,  if 
it  were  not  for  what  the  Bible  tells  circumstantially  of  the 
impenitent  antediluvians,  of  righteous  Noah,  faithful  Abraham, 
wrestling  Jacob,  penitent  David,  restored  Peter?  The  Bible 
concept  of  the  completeness  of  our  salvation  appears  as  it 
writes  down  that  last  shout  from  the  victorious  cross,  “It  is  fin¬ 
ished.”  Its  concept  of  the  welcome  which  the  Father  will  give 
to  the  returning  sinner  appears  in  the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son.  O  Christian,  is  it  not  something  to  have  the  Bible  con¬ 
cept  of  heaven  set  forth  in  the  words,  “  There  shall  be  no  night 
there;  and  there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor 
crying,  neither  shall  there  be  anymore  pain.”  O  afflicted  one, 
is  it  not  something  to  have  the  Bible  concept  of  trial  set  forth  in 
those  weighty,  stirring  words  of  the  Eighth  Chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  which  show  why  “all  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God ;  to  them  who  are 
the  called  according  to  His  purpose”?  Is  it  not  something  for 
us  preachers  to  be  able  to  tell  sinners  that  the  Bible  concept  of 
God’s  attitude  toward  them  is  set  forth  in  the  word  that  saved 
Nicodemus,  the  Ethiopian  eunuch  and  the  Philippian  jailer? 
Yes,  the  Bible  concept  so  inerrant  is  clothed  in  a  word  so  iner- 
rant  that,  as  I  have  read  somewhere,  if  I  mistake  not,  Moses 
does  not  adopt  Manetho’s  system  of  chronology,  Daniel  does 
not  insert  the  monstrous  cosmogonies  of  the  Babylonians, 
and  Paul  never  writes  a  word  concerning  Augustine’s  denial  of 
the  antipodes. 

In  the  case  of  the  Bible  mystery  the  concept  is  a  thing  that 
we  cannot  reason  out.  So  we  are  shut  up  to  the  Bible  word. 

I  come  now  to  take  up  the  Confessional  Proof  of  Charge  III., 

and  remark  that  Chapter  I.  of  the  Confession,  Sections  2  and  8, 

locate  God’s  word  written  in  our  Bible,  translated  into  English 

out  of  the  original  tongues,  with  its  fifty  authors,  its  66  books, 

its  Old  and  New  Testaments,  its  law,  prophets,  and  Psalms, 

Gospels  and  Epistles.  The  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  recipro- 

callv  confirm  each  other.  The  New  Testament  confirms  the  Old 
* 

directly  in  263  instances,  and  indirectly  in  upwards  of  350  cases. 
The  Septuagint  in  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 


44 


Christian  Fathers  in  the  case  of  the  New,  bear  testimony  to  the 
authenticity  of  the  present  canon.  Thus  our  Bible  contains  the 
very  Pentateuch  that  Isaiah  called  law  and  testimony— the 
Psalmist,  God’s  exceeding  broad  commandment  which  was  re¬ 
ceived  by  the  Sadducees,  expounded  by  Paul  to  the  Galatians; 
quoted  by  Jesus  in  the  Temptation  (from  Deuteronomy,  pro¬ 
nounced  by  the  Inaugural’s  school  of  Higher  Criticism  a  fraud) , 
enforced  by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount;  rescued  by  our  Saviour 
from  the  glosses  of  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes.  Our  Bible  con¬ 
tains  that  which  Paul,  Stephen,  Luke,  Peter  call  the  Oracles  of 
God.  Our  Bible  is  the  only  record  that  God  has  given  of  His 
Son.  The  third  gospel  is  called  in  its  “Acts  of  the  iVpostles, 
the  former  treatise  which  Luke  wrote  to  Theophilus.  We  read 
in  it  the  very  gospel  preached  to  Abraham,  the  very  Scriptures 
which  Christ  called  upon  the  Jews  to  search ;  the  very  Deuter¬ 
onomy  and  Revelation  which  will  admit  neither  addition  nor 
subtraction;  the  very  Word  of  the  Law,  for  which  Jeremiah 
suffered;  the  very  Law  Prophets  and  Psalms  searched  by  the 
Bereans  and  opened  unto  Apollos  by  Aquila  and  Priscilla.  Let 
us  recall  Confession  of  Faith, Chap.  I.,  Sec.  8. 

VIII.  The  Old  Testament  in  Hebrew,  (which  was  the  native 
language  of  God  of  old,)  and  the  New  Testament  in  Greek, 
(which  at  the  time  of  the  writing  of  it  was  most  generally  known 
to  the  nations,)  being  immediately  inspired  by  God,  and  by  His 
singular  care  and  providence,  kept  pure  in  all  ages,  are  therefore 
authentical;  so  as  in  all  controversies  of  religion  the  Church  is 
finally  to  appeal  unto  them.  But  because  these  original  tongues 
are  not  known  to  all  the  people  of  God  who  have  right  unto, 
and  interest  in  the  Scriptures,  and  are  commanded,  in  the  fear 
of  God,  to  read  and  search  them,  therefore  they  are  to  be  trans¬ 
lated  into  the  vulgar  language  of  every  nation  unto  which  they 
come,  that  the  Word  of  God  dwelling  plentifully  in  all,  they 
may  worship  Him  in  an  acceptable  manner,  and  through 
patience  and  comfort  of  the  Scriptures  may  have  hope. 

Thus,  Mr.  Moderator,  according  to  Sec.  8,  Chapter  I.  of  the 
Confession,  the  authority  of  your  and  my  Bible  as  God’s  Word 
written,  depends  upon  the  fact  that  it  is  the  outgrowth  of  the 


45 


original  Hebrew  and  Greek,  by  which  the  revelation  of  God  was 
conveyed  from  Heaven  to  the  children  of  men.  The  Presby 
terian  Church  holds  that  our  English  Bible  is  what  it  is,  because 
the  Hebrew  Old  Testament  and  the  Greek  New  Testament  of 
the  original  inerrant  autograph  of  the  Sacred  Record  are  what 
they  are.  If  this  be  not  the  case,  the  Chair  of  Old  Testament 
Hebrew,  and  the  Chair  of  New  Testament  Greek  in  our  theo 
logical  seminaries,  aye,  the  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Biblical 
Theology  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  are  in  each  case 
an  anomaly;  Dr.  Schaff  was  engaged  in  a  work  of  supereroga¬ 
tion,  when  he  translated  portions  of  the  Scriptures  for  Lange’s 
Commentary;  Dr.  Vincent’s  Word  Studies  in  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament  have  no  especial  significance;  Dr.  Briggs’  “  Biblical 
Study”  has  not  even  the  ghost  of  an  excuse  for  its  publica¬ 
tion.  The  Inaugural  says  “the  divine  authority  is  not  in  the 
style  or  in  the  words,  but  in  the  concept,  and  so  the  divine 
power  of  the  Bible  may  be  transferred  into  any  human  language. 
The  Divine  Authority  contained  in  the  Scriptures  speaks  as 
powerfully  in  English  as  in  Greek,  in  Choctaw  as  in  Aramaic, 
in  Chinese  as  in  Hebrew.”*  I  modify  and  correct  the  statement 
by  declaring  that  the  Divine  Authority  is  in  the  concept,  as  set 
forth  in  the  style  and  words  of  the  Hebrew,  Greek  and  Aramaic 
languages.  That  particular  style  and  those  particular  words  by 
which  the  Bible  writers  have  transmitted  God’s  Word  to  men 
must  determine  the  style  and  words  of  our  English,  our  Choctaw 
and  our  Chinese  Bibles.  For  it  is  a  sound  principle  that  “  the 
veracity  of  the  truth  transmitted  must  be  equivalent,  neither 
more  nor  less,  to  the  accuracy  of  the  word  which  conveyed  it.” 

With  respect  to  the  original  language  of  the  Old  Testament, 
I  quote  the  especially  significant  statement  of  Dr.  W.  Robertson 
Smith,  that  the  Septuagint  confirms  the  substantial  accuracy 
of  our  Hebrew  Bible.  The  Jews,  whose  advantage  over  the 
Gentiles  consisted,  according  to  Paul  (Romans  iii.  3),  in  their 
divinely  authorized  trusteeship  of  the  oracles  of  God,  were  never 
accused  of  unfaithfulness  to  their  trust,  as  to  the  care  of  the 
Scriptural  text.  Prof.  Charteris  tells  us  that  “  the  Jews  of 
Palestine  regarded  Hebrew  as  the  language  of  inspiration,  and 
the  old  Hebrew  books  alone  as  the  Sacred  Canon.”  Language 


*  Inaugural,  Third  Edition,  pages  31-32. 


46 


and  logic  simply  mean  nothing  to  those  who  deny  that  the  Old 
Testament  text  as  it  stands  was  accepted  by  Christ  and  the 
Apostles,  by  all  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament,  and  by  the 
Jews  of  their  day.  Indeed,  there  are  things  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  we  must  deny,  if  the  Old  Testament  be  not  authentic,  such 
as  the  Incarnation  of  Christ;  Paul’s  presentation  of  sin  and 
redemption  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  the  whole  spirit 
and  letter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

With  respect  to  the  original  language  of  the  New  Testament 
I  call  attention  to  an  article  by  Prof.  G.  P.  Wright  m  the 
Homiletic  Review  of  April,  1886.  “According  to  the  latest  and 
best  authority,”  says  Prof.  Wright,  “  seven-eighths  of  the  words 
of  the  New  Testament  have  passed  the  ordeal  of  textual  criti¬ 
cism  without  question;  of  the  remaining  one-eighth  only  a  small 
fraction  are  subject  to  reasonable  doubt;  so  that  fifty-nine  six¬ 
tieths  of  the  words  of  the  New  Testament,  as  they  came  from 
the  original  authors,  are  known  with  practical  certainty.  And 
even  of  the  one-sixtieth  open  to  question,  the  larger  part  of  the 
doubt  pertains  to  changes  of  order  in  the  words  and  other  com¬ 
parative  trivialities ;  so  that,  according  to  Westcott  and  Hort, 
“  The  amount  of  what  can  in  any  sense  be  called  substantial 
variation  is  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  whole  residuary  variation, 
and  can  hardly  form  more  than  a  thousandth  part  of  the  entire 

text.” 

Just  here  it  is  well  to  note  that  the  greatest  and  most  eminent 
scholars  who  have  been  foremost  in  discovering  manuscripts  and 
tabulating  variations  of  the  text  have  been  men  who  believed  in 
the  verbal  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures.  I  name  Robert  Stephen, 
Mill,  Bentley,  the  great  Bengel,  Beza,  Lachmann,  Tiegelies, 
Tischendorf,  Scrivener,  Burgon.  Says  Bentley,  “  The  more 
the  manuscripts,  the  greater  the  certainty  and  the  less  likelihood 
of  deception.”  Bengel,  who  increased  the  list  of  variations,  is 
thus  mentioned  by  Ellicott,  “  He  was  a  verbal  critic,  mainly 

because  he  believed  in  verbal  inspiration. 

Dr.  Briggs  is  known  in  Europe  as  well  as  America  as  a  lead- 
ing  investigator  of  questions  relating  to  the  original  tongues  of 
the  Scriptures.  In  his  response  to  the  Charges  and  Specifications 
last  November  he  announced  that  he  would  pay  no  respect  to 
anything  that  was  not  rendered  in  Hebrew,  Aramaic  or  Greek. 


\ 


47 


He  thus  confessed  his  slavery  to  literalism,  which  is  condemned 
both  by  Scripture,  precept  and  example.  He  requires  more  than 
was  demanded  of  the  Ethiopian  Eunuch.  A  remark  by  Dr. 
Cunningham  Geike  is  in  point  here.  “In  Acts  8:22,  Philip  is 
introduced  as  reading  through  the  Ethiopian  Eunuch  the  seventh 
and  eighth  verses  from  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah.  But 
curiously  he  again  quotes  from  the  Greek  translation  of  the 
Bible,  not  from  the  Hebrew,  the  Ethiopian  having  that  with  him 
and  doubtless  knowing  nothing  of  the  original  language.  Nor 
does  the  Evangelist  make  any  remark  to  him  on  the  variations 
in  the  translations  he  was  reading  from  the  text  of  the  Plebrew, 
which  was  canonical  and  inspired,  while  that  of  the  Septuagint 
was  made  by  uninspired  scholars — a  fact  which  silences  forever 
any  objection  such  as  that  if  we  are  to  learn  from  Scripture  the 
real  will  of  God,  we  must  go  to  the  original.”* 

And  as  good  a  scholar,  ecclesiastical  or  secular,  as  there  is  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church  or  in  the  United  States  of  America 
tells  us  that  the  supreme  and  paramount  question  which  is 
involved  in  Charge  III.  and  its  Specification  is  a  question  “  for 
every  minister  and  every  layman  to  settle  for  himself;  and, 
happily,  it  is  one  which,  in  all  the  fullness  of  its  importance, 
needs  no  technical  criticism  to  aid  in  its  solution,  but  which 
every  man  of  ordinary  education,  common  sense,  and  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  English  Bible,  alone  is  competent  to  decide.  The 
burning  question  is  one  that  needs  no  knowledge  of  either  Greek 
or  Hebrew  as  a  preparation  to  answer  it.” 

Thus  the  great  body  of  the  membership  of  the  Church  has  a 
substantial  Scriptural  reason  for  its  pronounced  earnest  opposi¬ 
tion  to  the  Inaugural  Address.  Just  as  the  Greek  was  near  enough 
to  the  Hebrew  for  the  Eunuch  to  understand  the  plan  of  salvation, 
so  is  the  English  of  the  Authorized  and  Revised  Versions  near 
enough  to  the  Hebrew,  the  Aramaic  and  the  Greek  for  the  most 
unlearned  Presbyterian,  to  say  nothing  of  other  Christian 
denominations,  to  understand  that  the  Inaugural  contradicts 
both  the  Bible  and  the  system  of  Bible  doctrine  which  is  the 
distinctive  mark  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. 

It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  reader  of  the  Bible  who  fails  to 
observe  its  frequent  affirmation  of  its  own  accuracy  as  God’s 


*  Sunday  School  Times ,  January  16th,  1892. 


48 


word  written.  The  Nineteenth  Psalm  follows  a  description  of 
the  perfection  of  God’s  Book  of  Nature  with  the  declaration: 

“  Ps.  xix.  7.  The  law  of  the  Lord  is  perfect,  converting  the 
soul;  the  testimony  of  the  Lord  is  sure,  making  wise  the 


simple,” 

which  declaration,  says  Dr.  Briggs  in  Lange  on  Psalms,  page 
153,  refers  to  God’s  Word  and  the  Revelation  of  His  will. 

I’note  two  instances  in  which  Dr.  Schaff  gives  us  a  vivid 
appreciation  of  the  accuracy  of  the  Scriptures.  The  first  is 

Luke  i.  1  to  4.  Forasmuch  as  many  have  taken  in  hand  to  set 
forth  in  order  a  declaration  of  those  things  which  are  most 
surely  believed  among  us.  2  Even  as  they  delivered  them  unto 
us,  which  from  the  beginning  were  eye-witnesses,  and  ministers 
of  ’  the  word  ;  3  It  seemed  good  to  me  also,  having  had  perfect 

understanding  of  all  things  from  the  very  first,  to  write  unto 
thee  in  order,  most  excellent  Theophilus,  4  That  thou  mightest 
know  the  certainty  of  those  things,  wherein  thou  hast  been 


instructed. 

Dr.  Schaff,  in  Lange  on  Luke,  renders  thus:  Forasmuch  as 
many  have  taken  in  hand  to  draw  up  a  narration  concerning  the 
things  fulfilled  among  us  even  as  those  handed  them  down  unto 
us,  who  from  the  beginning  were  eye-witnesses  and  ministers  of 
the  word,  It  seemed  good  to  me  also,  having  accurately  traced 
down  all  things  from  the  first,  to  write  unto  thee  in  order,  most 
excellent  Theophilus,  That  thou  mightest  know  accurately  the 
certainty  of  those  words  or  doctrines  wherein  thou  hast  been 
catechised.  The  second  is  that  petition  of  Christ’s  intercession 

prayer, 

“John  xvii.  17.  Sanctify  them,  through  thy  truth:  thy  word  is 
truth,” 

in  which  he  teaches  that  “  truth  ”  here  is  the  predicate  of  the 
word. 

“  What  was  true  of  the  oral  proclamation  of  the  word — 

1  Thess.  ii.  12.  ‘For  this  cause  also  thank  we  God  without 
ceasing,  because,  when  ye  received  the  word  of  God  which  ye 
heard  of  us,  ye  received  it  not  as  the  word  of  men,  but,  as  it  is 
in  truth,  the  word  of  God,  which  effectually  worketh  also  in  you 

that  believe,’ 

holds  good  of  the  written,”  says  Lange,  p.  43.  “  For  the  rela- 


49 


tion  between  word  and  writing  (quoting  from  Martensen)  is  or¬ 
dinarily  this,  that  the  writing  compresses  the  copiousness  of  the 
spoken  word  into  a  settled  elementary  form  the  final  expres¬ 
sion  made  clear  and  strong  by  deliberate  reflection  of  the  in¬ 
spired  thought — and  so  in  Holy  Scripture  we  have  the  ripe, 
developed  fruit  of  inspiration.” 

Hence,  we  must  take  direct  issue  with  the  statement  of  Bibli¬ 
cal  Study,  pages  41 1  and  412,  cited  and  read  by  the  defendant 
as  evidence.  “  Inspiration  has  to  do  with  the  truthfulness,  reli¬ 
ability,  accuracy  and  authority  of  the  Word  of  God.  ’  These 
attributes  are  said  to  be  those  that  “  make  the  Bible  what  it  is 
in  the  life  of  the  people  and  the  faith  of  the  Church,  without 
raising  the  question  of  inspiration.”  I  think  that  it  would  be 
better  to  say,  “  Inspiration  insures  the  truthfulness,  reliability, 
accuracy  and  authority  of  the  Word  of  God.”  It  is  to  sever  the 
stream  from  its  parent  fountain  to  talk  of  these  Bible  attributes 
without  raising  the  question  of  inspiration.  These  Bible  attri¬ 
butes  hold  a  somewhat  different  relation  from  the  same  attri¬ 
butes  in  connection  with  the  ledger  of  a  counting-room.  In  my 
discussion  of  the  subject  of  inspiration  yesterday,  while  I  set 
forth  very  definitely  my  own  doctrine  as  to  the  extent  of  inspi¬ 
ration,  I  wish  to  remind  the  Presbytery  that  it  is  not  claimed 
that  the  theory  of  the  mode  or  manner  of  inspiration  should 
be  made  a  test  of  orthodoxy.  It  was  my  object  to  show  that 
the  theory  of  inspiration  taught  by  the  accused  was  virtually  a 
denial  of  inspiration  in  any  true  sense.  It  was  not  my  object  to 
present  a  theory  of  inspiration  which  this  Court  must  accept  in 
order  that  the  theory  of  Prof.  Briggs  should  be  condemned.  I 
object  to  the  theory  that  the  concept  alone  is  inspired,  and  have 
endeavored  to  show  that  it  is  the  truth  which  is  inspired. 

Let  the  Court,  before  leaving  the  consideration  of  Charge 
III.,  attend  to  the  relation  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  Bible.  He  is 
the  character  of  its  story,  the  subject  of  its  doctrine,  the  result¬ 
ant  of  its  logic,  the  reason  of  its  existence.  So  He  says  Him¬ 
self.  He  came  to  fulfil  the  law.  The  Scriptures  testify  of  Him. 
The  law,  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms  were  written  concerning 
Him.  Abraham  saw  His  day.  David  spoke  of  Him.  Isaiah 
prophesied  of  Him.  So  say  the  Epistles,  as  they  proclaim  that 


50 


the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament  is  the  identical  Christ  of  the 
Old  Testament.  The  Eleventh  Chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  shows  Christians  of  all  ages  looking  to  Jesus,  the 
Author  and  Finisher  of  our  faith.  Listen  to  Him  as  He  answers 
Philip’s  petition:  “Lord,  shew  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth 
us.”  Have  I  been  so  long  a  time  with  you  and  yet  hast  thou 
not  known  me,  Philip  ?  He  that  hath  seen  me,  hath  seen  the 
Father;  thereby  teaching  the  disciple  that  when  he  looked  on 
Christ  he  beheld  the  image  of  God,  the  Father.*  And  when 
Jesus,  our  High  Priest,  makes  the  prayer  of  intercession,  and 
says:  “  Neither  pray  I  for  these  alone,  but  for  them  also  which 
shall  believe  on  me  through  their  Word,  ”f  how  can  anyone 
escape  the  conclusion  that  He  whom  Philip  saw  in  the  Word 
made  flesh,  we,  when  the  Holy  Spirit  makes  the  Scripture  a 
means  of  grace  to  our  soul,  see  in  the  Word  made  Bible?  This 
truth  is  expounded  by  Paul  in  II.  Cor.  iv.  3—6. 

3  But  if  our  gospel  be  hid,  it  is  hid  to  them  that  are  lost. 

4  In  whom  the  god  of  this  world  hath  blinded  the  minds  of 
them  which  believe  not,  lest  the  light  of  the  glorious  gospel  of 
Christ,  who  is  the  image  of  God,  should  shine  unto  them. 

5  For  we  preach  not  ourselves,  but  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord; 
and  ourselves  your  servants  for  Jesus’  sake.  6  For  God  who 
commanded  the  light  to  shine  out  of  darkness,  hath  shined  in 
our  hearts,  to  give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of 
God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  fact  that  the  gospel  of  the  Bible  revealed  the  image 
of  Christ  as  He  manifested  the  image  of  the  Father  was  the 
reason  of  the  method  of  Paul’s  ministry.  This  appears  from 
the  preceding  context*. 

II.  Cor.  Chapter  IV.  (1-2). 

1  Therefore,  seeing  we  have  this  ministry,  as  we  have  received 
mercy,  we  faint  not.  2  But  have  renounced  the  hidden  things 
of  dishonesty  not  walking  in  craftiness,  nor  handling  the  word 
of  God  deceitfully;  but,  by  manifestation  of  the  truth,  com¬ 
mending  ourselves  to  every  man’s  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God. 

For  “  walking  in  craftiness  nor  handling  the  word  of  God  de- 


*  John  14:  (8-9). 
f  John  17:20. 


51 


ceitfully,  ”  Conybeare  and  Howson  have  ‘ 4  I  walk  not  in  the  paths 
of  cunning,  I  adulterate  not  the  word  of  God.  *  For  handling 
the  word  of  God  deceitfully,”  Lange  has  “nor  falsifying  the 

word  of  God.”f 

Now,  just  as  the  human  body  which  tabernacled  the  Second 
Person  of  the  Trinity  was  the  very  man  who  was  holy,  harmless, 
undefiled  and  separate  from  sinners,  who  was  tempted  in  all 
points  as  we  are  yet  without  sin,  who  did  all  things  well,  whose 
challenge  could  not  be  met,  “which  of  you  convinceth  me  of 
sin,”  who  was  absolutely  perfect,  absolutely  spotless,  absolutely 
infallible;  so  the  human  medium  which  tabernacles  Jesus  Christ 
the  Word  made  Bible  must,  but  be  as  perfect,  as  spotless,  as  in¬ 
fallible.  If  it  took  a  perfect  man  to  exhibit  a  perfect  God  it 
takes  a  perfect  Bible  to  exhibit  a  perfect  Christ.  There  must 
be  no  spots  on  this  Parthenon.  There  must  be  no  faults  in 
this  mirror.  There  must  be  no  errors  in  this  original  text. 
There  must  be  nothing  in  circumstantials  to  detract  from  its  in¬ 
fallibility.  There  must  be  nothing  in  the  human  setting  to  de¬ 
tract  from  the  perfection  of  God’s  workmanship  in  the  precious 
jewel.  I  say  it  in  all  humility,  Mr.  Moderator,  but  in  the  honest 
conviction  of  my  soul,  that  the  Bible  as  presented  in  the  Inaugural 
Address  is  not  Jesus  Christ  the  Word  made  Bible.  Let  Rev. 
Hugh  Martin’s  Christ’s  Presence  in  the  Gospel  History  (pub¬ 
lished  some  thirty  years  ago)  confirm  my  position. 

Referring  to  John  17:  20,  we  read,  “  If  Jesus  Christ  looketh 
forth  upon  me  now  from  their  word  by  His  Spirit,  the  Spirit 
lighting  up  that  very  word  as  it  has  been  written,  and  Jesus 
thereby  looking  forth  exactly  to  the  very  life  as  that  written 
word,  if  I  may  so  say,  permits  Him,”  then  my  Beloved  fairer 
than  the  sons  of  men  chiefest  among  ten  thousand  is  to  me 
altogether  lovely  and  the  express  image  of  the  Father  only  if 
this  word  be  exactly  what  the  Spirit  of  Christ  would  have 
written  as  holy  men  of  God  were  moved  by  the  Spirit  an  in¬ 
spired  record  and  perfect. 

And  the  Gospel  biography  is  of  a  piece  with  the  whole  Scrip- 

v 

*  Conybeare  &  Howson,  Life  and  Epistles  of  Paul,  Randolph  s  Edition,  page 
447- 

\  Lange  on  II.  Corinthians,  page  64. 


52 


ture,  as  we  read:  “That  He  should  enter  into  it;  identify 
Himself  with  it;  make  it  vital  with  His  living  power  and  vocal 
with  His  own  personal  voice ;  make  it  from  age  to  age  the  dwell¬ 
ing-place  of  His  Presence;  the  definition,  the  circumspection, 
the  expression  of  His  gracious  Presence;  committing  Himself; 
thoroughly,  contentedly,  cordially  committing  Himself  to  all 
generation  to  be  judged  as  He  appears  there;  this  I  cannot  be¬ 
lieve  unless  the  biography  answers  His  own  great  idea  of  what 
His  own  biography  should  be.  It  must  be  perfect;  even  in  all 
the  perfection  that  Christ  Himself  can  give  to  it;  yea,  in  all  the 
perfection  He  can  claim  for  Himself.  It  must  be  an  image  as 
perfect  in  its  kind,  in  written  words,  of  Jesus — as  Jesus  is  the 
perfect  image  in  human  flesh  of  the  Eternal  Father.  The  co¬ 
alescence  of  the  Presence  and  the  Biography  demand  it.  Nay, 
it  must  be  an  Autobiography.  Jesus  Himself  must  be  the 
author  of  it — by  His  Spirit.”  * 

Thus  we  have  shown  whom  we  see  under  this  inward  illumi¬ 
nation  of  the  Spirit — at  whose  feet"we  sit  as  we  take  in  this  Scrip¬ 
ture  which  is  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

This  line  of  argument  is  confirmed  by  page  365  of  Biblical 
Study  cited  and  read  by  the  defendant  as  evidence  as  he  sub¬ 
scribes  to  the  doctrine  that  “  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  Supreme  in¬ 
terpreter  of  Scripture  is  the  highest  attainment  of  interpreta¬ 
tion.”  Is  it  any  wonder,  therefore,  that  Section  V.,  Chapter 
I.,  insists  upon  the  entire  perfection  of  Holy  Scripture? 

Therefore  from  the  first  verse  of  Genesis  to  the  last  verse  of 
Revelation  this  Holy  Scripture  is  God’s  Word  written,  is  imme¬ 
diately  inspired,  and  is  the  rule  of  faith  and  practice. 

Charge  IV. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America 
charges  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  being  a  Minister  of 
the  said  Church  and  a  member  of  the  Presbytery  of  New  York, 
with  teaching  that  Moses  is  not  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch, 
which  is  contrary  to  direct  statements  of  Holy  Scripture,  and 
to  the  essential  doctrines  of  the  Standards  of  the  said  Church, 


*  Family  Treasury  (First  Half-Year,  i860),  pages  349-350* 


53 


that  the  Holy  Scripture  evidences  itself  to  be  the  Word  of  God 
by  the  consent  of  all  the  parts,  and  that  the  infallible  rule  of  in¬ 
terpretation  of  Scripture  is  the  Scripture  itself. 

I  will  not  read  the  Specification.  From  what  source  are  we 
to  derive  competent  testimony  with  reference  to  the  questions 
involved  in  Charge  IV.  and  Specification?  Evidently  from  the 
Bible  alone,  inasmuch  as  it  contains  the  only  really  authori¬ 
tative  history  on  the  subject,  and  its  structure  makes  it  the  only 
qualified  interpreter  of  its  own  statements.  While  it  is  one  book, 
yet  it  is  the  product  of  fifty  authors,  each  independent  of  the 
other  and  each  an  independent  witness. 

The  Gospel  History  of  Jesus  Christ  shows  him  as  the  Great 
Witness  Bearer,  constantly  appealing  to  the  belief  of  men.  He 
told  Pilate:  “To  this  end  was  I  born  and  for  this  cause  came  I 
into  the  world,  that  I  should  bear  witness  unto  the  truth.”*  His 
parting  charge  to  the  disciples  was  :  “  Believe  me  that  I  am  in  the 
Father  and  the  Father  in  me,  or  else  believe  me  for  the  very 
work’s  sake.”f  As  a  voucher  for  His  competency  and  credibility, 
He  introduces  the  Father :  “The  Father  Himself,  which  hath  sent 
me,  hath  borne  witness  of  me.”J  God  the  Floly  Ghost  vouches 
for  the  same.  “When  the  Comforter  is  come  whom  I  will  send 
unto  you  from  the  Father,  even  the  Spirit  of  Truth  which  pro¬ 
ceeded  from  the  Father  He  shall  testify  of  me.”§  The  author  of 
the  Inaugural  vouches  for  the  same,  as  he  says  that  “the  authority 
of  Jesus  Christ,  to  those  who  know  Him  to  be  their  Divine 
Saviour,  outweighs  all  other  authority  whatever.” 

Jesus  Christ  is  noted  by  the  Gospel  writers  as  bearing  testi¬ 
mony  to  the  existence,  the  identity  of  the  Scriptures  as  God’s 
written  word  twenty-four  times.  And  that  He  intended  the 
Old  Testament  as  we  have  it  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  “the 
most  imaginative  of  modern  writers  will  not  call  into  question 
that  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  we  have  them  now,  were 
in  existence  at  the  time  of  the  translation  of  the  Septuagint,  or 
that  they  were  acknowledged  among  the  Jews  all  over  the  world,  or 


*  John  18:37. 
f  John  14:11. 
X  John  5:37. 
§John  15:26. 


54 


that  they  were  regarded  by  them  with  a  reverence  so  great  that 
it  ran  into  superstition  and  may  almost  be  regarded  as  idola¬ 
trous.  ” 

We  know  that  our  Lord  challenged  the  belief  in  Himself  on  the 
ground  of  the  belief  of  the  Jews  in  the  person  whom  He  authenti¬ 
cated  as  the  Author  of  the  Pentateuch.  “Do  not  think  that  I 
will  accuse  you  to  the  Father;  there  is  one  that  accuseth  you 
even  Moses,  whom  ye  trust.  For  had  ye  believed  Moses,  ye 
would  have  believed  me;  for  he  wrote  of  me.  But  if  ye  believe 
not  his  writings,  how  can  ye  believe  my  words?  * 

If  Moses  did  not  write  the  Pentateuch,  no  Jew  can  be  blamed 
for  not  accepting  Christ. 

So  that,  when  the  Inaugural  Address  asserts  that — 

Page  33,  “  It  may  be  regarded  as  the  certain  result  of  the 
science  of  the  Higher  Criticism  that  Moses  did  not  write  the 
Pentateuch,  ” 

it  simply  gives  expression  to  the  profane  idea  that  our  Lord  was 
dishonest.  To  say  that  He  was  ignorant  of  the  discoveries  by 
which  the  higher  critics  eliminate  Moses  from  the  Pentateuch  is 
to  say  that  we  are  not  to  trust  a  single  promise  recorded  by  the 
Gospel  writers  as  made  by  Him. 

As  we  turn  over  the  four  Gospels  to  find  citations  from  the 
Pentateuch,  we  find  that  Matthew  19,  17:  9  is  a  quotation  from 
Deuteronomy;  Mark  7:  10,  from  Exodus,  Leviticus  and  Deuter¬ 
onomy  ;  Luke  20:  28,  37?  from  Exodus  and  Deuteronomy; 
John  1  :  45,  from  Genesis  and  Deuteronomy;  John  5  :  45~47?  from 
Genesis  and  Deuteronomy;  John  7:  19,  22,  23,  from  Genesis, 
Leviticus  and  Deuteronomy.  The  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  of 
Genesis  are  the  subject  of  Christ’s  frequent  mention.  The  pass- 
over  of  Exodus  found  its  explanation  in  His  Cross.  The  book 
of  Leviticus  furnished  His  direction  to  the  healed  leper.  The 
brazen  serpent  of  Numbers  was  His  text  in  the  sermon  to  Nico- 
demus.  We  have  seen  that  Exodus  and  Deuteronomy  furnished 
Him  the  weapon  that  vanquished  Satan.  I  find  that,  in  the  four 
Gospels,  Jesus  Christ,  directly  or  indirectly,  refers  to  Genesis 
twelve  times;  to  Exodus,  twelve;  to  Leviticus,  fifteen;  to  Num¬ 
bers,  three;  to  Deuteronomy,  twenty.  So  that  He,  without 


*  John  5:  (45-47). 


55 


whom  not  anything  was  made  that  is  made ;  without  whom  not 
anything  became  that  did  become;  by  whom  all  things  consist 
knows  nothing  of  the  Higher  Criticism  s  discovery  of  the  pseudo- 
Moses  of  the  Deuteronomy,  which  never  saw  the  light  until  the 
men  of  Josiah’s  day  palmed  it  off  on  their  king — of  Ezra,  as  a 
pious  fraud;  of  Daniel,  as  a  pseudonym. 

Thus  the  testimony  of  other  books  of  Scripture,  with  reference 
to  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  being  countersigned 
by  Jesus  Christ  the  Truth,  is  as  indisputable  and  irresistible  as  a 
mathematical  axiom.  Let  us  consider  a  brief  outline  of  what  it 
says.  The  Pentateuch  itself,  in  Exodus  24:  4,  Numbers  33:  2, 
Deut.  5  :  31  (Appointment)  Deuteronomy  31 :  9,  affirms  that  Moses 
is  its  author.  It  may  be  objected  that  Moses  himself  always  ap¬ 
pears  in  the  third  person.  But  the  Pentateuch  is  a  history,  not 
an  autobiography.  The  centre  of  interest  in  Ihomas  H.  Ben¬ 
ton’s  “Thirty  Years  in  the  United  States  Senate,”  and  in  James 
G.  Blaine’s  “Twenty  Years  in  Congress,”  is,  in  each  case,  un¬ 
doubtedly  the  personality  of  the  author.  The  authorship  of 
these  books  is  not  questioned,  however,  because  the  authors 
appear  in  the  third  person. 

In  Joshua  I.  (7:8),  I.  Kings  2:3,  we  have  the  testimony  of 
God;  in  Joshua  8:31,  the  testimony  of  his  cotemporaries,  one 
of  whom  was  Joshua,  his  chosen  friend  (testimony  of  Boswell, 
concerning  Johnson;  of  John  Marshall,  concerning  George  Wash¬ 
ington;  of  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  concerning  Abra¬ 
ham  Lincoln) ;  in  I.  Kings  2 :  3,  again  the  testimony  of  David, 
who  sings  in  many  a  Psalm  the  Pentateuchal  history  (as  Walter 
Scott  sings  the  early  traditions  of  Scotland,  or  as  1  ennyson 
sings  the  historic  Britain);  in  Ezra  3:2,  6:18,  Neh.  I.  7-8,  Neh. 
13:1,  the  testimony  of  the  whole  Jewish  nation;  in  I.  Chronicles 
6:  49,  the  testimony  of  the  carefully  kept  genealogical  roll  of  the 
Hebrews;  in  Daniel  91  1,  the  testimony  of  one  whose  memorable 
prayer  shows  his  familiar  acquaintance  with  his  country’s  history; 
in  Romans  10:19,  the  testimony  of  Paul,  both  a  Hebrew  and 
Greek  scholar;  in  Acts  3:22,  the  testimony  of  Peter  when  the 
Gospel  was  on  trial  before  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim;  in  Acts  7  •  37 
38,  the  definite  testimony  of  Stephen  and  of  Luke,  his  reportei, 
as  the  definite  pronoun  is  applied  to  Moses — all  affirming  the 
Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch. 


56 


The  Inaugural  Address  put  forth  no  novelty,  not  even  in 
America,  when  it  heralded  the  assertion  of  the  Higher  Criticism 
to  the  contrary.  In  1794-95  a  book  appeared  which  contains 
the  following  statements  concerning  the  Pentateuch.  Referring 
to  Deuteronomy  it  is  said  that  “the  style  and  manner  of 
writing  marks  more  evidently  than  in  the  former  books  that 
Moses  is  not  the  writer.”  He  then  founds  an  argument  on  the 
mention  of  “  Dan”  (a  place)  in  Genesis  14:  14,  and  on  the  men¬ 
tion  of  a  kingship  in  Israel,  Genesis  36:  31,  and  cites  these  cases 
as  “  showing  therefrom,  as  in  the  preceding  case,  that  Moses  is 
not  the  author  of  the  book  of  Genesis.”  His  final  conclusion  is 
“  that  the  book  of  Genesis,  though  it  is  placed  first  in  the  Bible 
and  ascribed  to  Moses,  has  been  manufactured  by  some  un¬ 
known  person  after  the  book  of  Chronicles  was  written,  which 
was  not  until  at  least  eight  hundred  and  sixty  years  after  the 
time  of  Moses.” 

It  may  astonish  some  of  us  to  know  that  these  extracts  are 
from  Thomas  Paine’s  “Age  of  Reason.”  I  was  not  so  much 
astonished  when  I  read  in  the  English  Baptist  Magazine  of  June, 
1891,  an  account  of  those  high  priests  of  the  Higher  Criticism, 
Wellhausen  and  Kuenen.  The  writer  notes  “the  bitterness, 
the  contempt  and  the  vindictive  spitefulness  which  Wellhausen 
takes  every  possible  opportunity  of  venting  in  respect  to  the 
religious  motives  and  aims  of  these  Old  Testament  writers  who 
prepared  the  ground  for  our  distinctively  Christian  doctrines  of 
Sacrament  and  Atonement,  the  Priestly  work  of  our  Lord,  and 
the  Sovereign  Grace  by  which  alone  regeneration  and  sanctifica¬ 
tion  are  ours.” 

Kuenen  is  mentioned  as  speaking  less  offensively  concerning 
“the  fictions  of  the  Pentateuch  and  the  superstitions  and  inter¬ 
ested  motives  of  their  authors.” 

The  writer  further  speaks  of  “  the  attitude  of  the  great  body 
of  Higher  Criticism  on  the  Continent”  as  “one  of  avowed 
hostility  to  pious  faith  in  a  Divine  Redeemer,  and  to  a  super¬ 
natural  revelation  of  forgiveness  through  the  sacrifice  of  Cal¬ 
vary.” 

So  these  German  critics  have  no  reason  to  find  fault  with 


57 


Thomas  Paine,  and  before  the  Presbytery  of  New  York  sets  its 
seal  of  approval  upon  the  Inaugural’s  conclusion  that  Higher 
Criticism  has  overthrown  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Penta¬ 
teuch,  the  brethren  may  well  give  heed  to  an  English  Bishop  who 
must  have  had  the  Broad  Church  critics  in  mind  when  he  wrote: 
“They  cannot  divide  Moses  and  Christ.  If  they  do  not  believe 
the  one,  they  will  find  sooner  or  later  that  they  do  not  believe 
the  other.  If  they  begin  with  casting  off  Moses  and  not  believ¬ 
ing  his  writings,  they  will  find  in  the  end  that  to  be  consistent 
they  must  cast  off  Christ.  If  they  will  not  have  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment,  they  will  discover  at  last  that  they  cannot  have  the  New. 
The  two  are  so  linked  together  that  they  cannot  be  separated.” 
How  can  this  Court  say  otherwise  than  “  What  God  hath  joined 
together  let  not  man  put  asunder.”* 

Charge  V. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America 
charges  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.  D.,  being  a  Minister  of 
the  said  Church  and  a  member  of  the  Presbytery  of  New  York, 
with  teaching  that  Isaiah  is  not  the  author  of  half  of  the  book 
that  bears  his  name,  which  is  contrary  to  direct  statements  of 
Holy  Scripture  and  to  the  essential  doctrines  of  the  Standards 
of  the  said  Church,  that  the  Holy  Scripture  evidences  itself  to 
be  the  word  of  God  by  the  consent  of  all  the  parts,  and  that  the 
infallible  rule  of  interpretation  of  Scripture  is  the  Scripture 
itself. 

The  assertion  that  Isaiah  did  not  write  half  of  the  book  that 
bears  his  name  is  answered,  with  one  exception,  by  quotations 
from  that  portion  of  the  Book  of  Isaiah  which  the  author  of  the 
Inaugural  Address  in  his  Biblical  Study  and  “Messianic  Proph¬ 
ecy  ”  ascribed  to  another  person  solely  on  the  basis  of  the  “  may 
be  ”  of  higher  criticism.  Mr.  Moderator,  if  according  to  the  line 
of  proof  which  has  been  introduced  Moses  be  the  author  of  the 
Pentateuch  we  are  shut  up  to  the  conclusion,  that  Isaiah  is  the 
author  of  the  whole  of  the  book  which  bears  his  name.  There- 


*  Ryle  on  John,  Vol.  I.,  page  322. 


58 


fore  the  may  of  the  higher  criticism  cannot  hold  its  place  before 
the  must  not  of  traditionalism,  not  of  blind  conservatism,  but  the 
must  of  the  competency,  the  credibility,  the  divine  authority  of 
Jesus  Christ  as  a  witness,  and  of  the  competency,  the  credi¬ 
bility,  the  divine  authority  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament 
as  witnesses.  In  the  third  Gospel,  (Luke  3  14),  we  have  Luke  (the 
preface  to  whose  gospel  according  to  Dr.  Schaff  vouches  for  his 
accuracy),  Paul  (the  friend  of  Luke  who,  we  would  say  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Higher  Critics,  may  have  had  some  agency  in  the 
production  of  his  gospel)  and  John  the  Baptist  identifying  Isaiah 
as  the  author  of  the  Fortieth  Chapter.  In  Luke  4:17-18,  we 
have  Jesus  Christ  as  He  set  up  the  banner  of  His  earthly 
ministry  at  Nazareth,  Luke  and  Paul,  identifying  Isaiah  as  the 
author  of  the  Sixty-first  Chapter.  In  John  12:38-41,  we  have 
John  the  Apostle  identifying  Isaiah  as  the  author  of  the  Fifty- 
third  Chapter.  In  Romans  10:16,  20,  Paul  identifies  Isaiah  as 
the  author  of  the  Fifty-third  and  Sixty-fifth  Chapters.* 

“  The  array  of  linguistic  evidence  in  proof  of  a  diversity  of 
authorship,”  says  Prof.  Daniel  S.  Talcott,  of  Bangor  Theological 
Seminary,  “rests  very  largely  on  an  assumption  which  none  of 
these  critics  have  the  hardihood  distinctly  to  vindicate,  namely, 
that  within  the  narrow  compass  of  the  Hebrew  literature  that 
has  come  down  to  us  from  any  given  period,  we  have  the  means 
for  arriving  at  an  accurate  estimate  of  all  the  resources  which  the 
language  at  that  time  possessed.  When  we  have  eliminated  from 
the  list  of  words  and  phrases  relied  upon  to  prove  a  later  date 
than  the  time  of  Isaiah,  everything  the  value  of  which  to  the 
argument  must  stand  or  fall  with  this  assumption,  there  remains 
absolutely  nothing  which  may  not  be  reasonably  referred  to  the 
reign  of  Hezekiah.  Indeed,  considering  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  times,  it  might  justly  have  been  expected  that  the  traces  of 
foreign  influence  upon  the  language  would  be  far  more  conspic¬ 
uous  in  a  writing  of  this  date  than  they  actually  are  in  the  con¬ 
troverted  portions.” 

“  Probably  there  is  not  one  of  all  the  languages  of  the  globe, 
whether  living  or  dead,  possessing  any  considerable  literatuie 
which  does  not  exhibit  instances  of  greater  change  in  the  style 

of  an  author  writing  at  different  periods  of  his  life  than  appears 

«► 

*  Other  examples.  Matthew  4:  (14-15)  refers  to  Isaiah  9:1;  Matthew  12:  (17-18) 
to  Isaiah  42:1;  Acts2S:  (25-26)  to  Isaiah  6:9. 


59 


upon  a  comparison  of  the  later  prophecies  of  Isaiah  with  the 
earlier.  ”  * 

Every  member  of  this  Court  knows  that  our  own  literature 
abounds  in  such  instances.  Literary  style  varies  with  the  age, 
circumstances  or  idiosyncrasies  of  the  writer. 

There  is  the  noted  Junius,  whose  identity  has  baffled  the 
curiosity  of  four  generations  of  critics;  no  one  has  been  able 
to  detect  him  in  any  of  the  contemporary  writers  of  his  day. 
When  Walter  Scott,  the  poet,  appeared  in  the  Waverley  Novels, 
the  transformation  was  so  complete  as  to  puzzle  his  intimate 
friends.  The  same  Hawthorne  wrote  the  “  Twice-Told  Tales  ” 
and  the  letters  which  came  to  the  State  Department  from  the 
Liverpool  Consulate.  America  has  a  banker  poet,  and,  because 
he  writes  a  poem,  is  he  any  the  less  the  writer  of  the  letter  to 
his  business  correspondent?  To  some  of  us  the  Inaugural  itself 
is  a  case  in  point,  as  we  wonder  at  the  facility  with  which  the 
same  pen  inscribes  what  we  deem  contradictory  statements. 

The  author  of  the  Inaugural  says  in  “  Biblical  Study  ”  :  “  The 

presumption  of  the  New  Testament  is  in  favor  of  the  authorship 
of  Isaiah.”  We  affirm  that  the  evidence  of  the  New  Testament 
is  in  favor  of  the  authorship  of  Isaiah,  as  the  author  of  the  Inau¬ 
gural  once  taught. 

In  a  late  production  of  the  author  of  the  Inaugural,  entitled 
“The  Bible,  Church  and  Reason,”  he  answers  the  question 
“Who  are  the  Higher  Critics?”  Appendix,  p.  236,  by  giving  a 
list  of  145  persons  who  are  said  to  “  stand  in  solid  phalanx 
against  the  traditional  theory  that  Moses  is  responsible  for  our 
Pentateuch  in  its  present  form,  and  that  Isaiah  wrote  the  whole 
of  the  book  which  bears  his  name.”  In  this  list  I  read  the 
names  of  Julius  Wellhausen,  Ernest  Renan,  Abraham  Kuenen, 
Thomas  K.  Cheyne,  Samuel  R.  Driver,  W.  Robertson  Smith, 
Arthur  P.  Stanley,  John  William  Colenso,  Crawford  H.  Toy, 
William  R.  Harper,  R.  Heber  Newton,  Washington  Gladden, 
John  W.  Chadwick.  The  merest  tyro  in  criticism  does  not  need 
to  be  told ;  indeed,  it  is  the  common  report,  that  this  solid  pha¬ 
lanx  is  so  solid  that  its  members  cannot  agree  among  themselves ; 

^Smith’s  Bible  Dictionary  (edited  by  Professor  Hackett),  Article  Isaiah,  Yol.  II., 
page  1165. 


60 


so  solid,  that  of  the  theories  which  they  and  their  fellows 
have  formulated,  747  have  by  actual  count  been  exploded  or 
have  given  up  the  gospel.  An  investigation  would  show,  I  doubt 
not,  that  the  whole  list,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  names  is,  as 
to  doctrine  and  practice,  anything  but  Presbyterian.  It  is  but 
fair  to  say  that  any  in  this  list  who  acknowledge  that  they  are 
atheists  or  agnostics  or  rationalists  or  Bible  iconoclasts  will  not 
be  regarded  by  Presbyterian  Church  courts  generally  as  compe¬ 
tent  or  credible  witnesses  with  respect  to  the  Mosaic  authorship 
of  the  Pentateuch,  or  with  respect  to  the  unity  of  Isaiah. 

And  how  can  they  be  Presbyterian  when  the  root  principle  of 
the  Higher  Criticism,  as  expounded  by  the  author  of  the  Inau¬ 
gural,  is  the  fallacy  which,  as  noted  by  another,  “hinges  on  the 
absence  of  testimony  as  to  facts.” 

The  late  Dr.  Mendenhall,  editor  of  the  Methodist  Quarterly  Re¬ 
view ,  made  a  journey  to  Europe,  chiefly  for  the  purpose,  as  he 
writes,  of  investigating  the  critical  biblical  questions  that  have 
been  and  are  still  in  discussion  between  conservative  and  ration¬ 
alist  critics.  This  purpose  was  carried  out  in  extended  inter¬ 
views  with  thirty-one  of  the  prominent  professors  in  Germany 
and  eight  professors  in  England,  besides  numerous  interviews 
with  other  scholars  in  those  countries  and  in  Scotland  and 
France.  He  came  home  to  write  an  editorial  on  “The  Crime 
of  the  Higher  Criticism,”  as  he  learned  it  from  the  school  whose 
members  are  named  in  the  roll  which  appears  in  “The  Bible, 
Church  and  Reason,”  and  introduced  by  Dr.  Briggs  as  evidence. 
From  that  editorial  I  make  the  following  extract:  “  Results,  not, 
conclusions,  are  in  order.  It  is  a  crime,  with  the  former  incom¬ 
plete  and  undetermined,  to  declare  the  latter.  It  is  a  crime  to 
foist  probabilities  into  the  air  when  under  analysis  they  turn 
out  to  be  the  unsupported  inventions  of  theorists.  It  is  a  crime 
to  dignify  a  conjecture  with  all  the  proportions,  strength, 
and  character  of  a  real  fact,  and  to  substitute  the  one  for  the 
other.  It  is  a  crime  to  turn  the  Bible  into  a  sporting  ground  for 
theorists,  who,  unrestrained  by  conscience  or  the  Christian  faith, 
and  neglectful  even  of  intellectual  order  and  honesty,  assail  the 
great  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  with  invective  and  hauteur , 
assign  its  books  to  periods  and  authors  that  neither  history  nor 


6L 


logic  will  support,  eliminate  the  supernatural  element  with  the 
fervor  of  infidelity,  but  in  the  guise  of  a  professed  faith,  and 
trifle  with  the  stupendous  and  priceless  truths  of  a  revelation 
whose  chief  value  is  derived  from  the  very  elements  so  ruthlessly 
expunged.  Such  is  the  crime  of  the  higher  criticism.”  * 

Now  something  about  the  Silence  of  History: 

Sceptics  have  grounded  doubts  concerning  the  facts  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  on  the  silence  of  profane  historians  of  the  time  of  the 
writers  of  the  Bible.  Tacitus,  Juvenal  and  Pliny  prove  that  the 
doubts  have  no  basis  of  fact.  So  do  the  catacombs  of  the  first 
century.  The  younger  Pliny  talks  about  Vesuvius,  its  erup¬ 
tions,  but  makes  no  mention  of  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii. 
Humboldt  was  one  of  these  doubters.  See  how  he  contra¬ 
dicts  and  destroys  his  theory  in  the  following,  from  Varn- 
hagen's  diary:  “Humboldt  confirms  the  opinion  I  have  more 
than  once  expressed,  that  too  much  must  not  be  inferred  from 
the  silence  of  authors.  He  adduces  three  important  and  unde¬ 
niable  facts,  as  to  which  one  finds  no  evidence  in  places  where 
one  would  naturally  above  all  others  expect  to  find  it.  In  the 
records  of  Barcelona  there  is  not  a  trace  of  the  triumphal  entry 
made  by  Columbus;  in  Marco  Polo  no  mention  of  the  great  wall 
of  China;  and  in  the  archives  of  Portugal  nothing  about  the 
voyage  of  Amerigo  Vespucci  in  the  service  of  that  crown.  (His¬ 
tory  of  the  Geography  of  the  New  World,  Part  IV.,  p.  160.)  Still 
more  is  this  the  case  when  the  historian  is  a  polite  man  of  the 
world,  as  were  all  the  Roman  historians  of  the  first  century,  and 
when  the  religion  is  one  of  lowliness.  Of  this  we  have  illustra¬ 
tions  in  our  own  time.  Thus  Smollett  never  noticed  the  Meth¬ 
odist  movement  of  1750;  nor  has  Lord  Mahon,  a  historian  pecul¬ 
iarly  sober  and  comprehensive,  noticed  the  contemporaneous 
evangelical  revival  of  the  Church  of  England.  Yet  what  other 
events  have  had  greater  permanent  results,  and  at  the  same  time 
rest  upon  a  more  undisputed  basis  of  facts?  This  line  of  argu¬ 
ment  eliminates  the  force  of  the  evidence  cited  by  the  defendant 
from  the  “Bible,  Church  and  Reason,”  pages  136-139.! 


*  Methodist  Review,  November,  1890. 
t Family  Treasury  (Second  Half-Year,  i860),  page  201. 


62 


Charge  VI. 

The  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America 
charges  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Briggs,  D.D.,  being  a  Minister  of 
the  said  Church  and  a  member  of  the  Presbytery  of  New  York, 
with  teaching  that  Sanctification  is  not  complete  at  death,  which 
is  contrary  to  the  essential  doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture  and  of  the 
Standards  of  the  said  Church,  that  the  souls  of  believers  are  at 
their  death  at  once  made  perfect  in  holiness. 

I  will  not  spend  time  in  reading  the  specification  and  proofs. 

All  that  we  can  know  on  this  subject  is  derived  entirely  fiom 
revelation.  The  Scriptures  call  it  a  mystery.  I  claim  that  in 
what  they  say  about  it  there  is  nothing  to  warrant  more  than  the 
name  of  Middle  State,  if  even  that,  in  describing  the  interval 
between  death  and  the  resurrection;  nothing  to  warrant  the  ex¬ 
tension  of  the  process  rather  than  the  fact  of  the  enjoyment  of 
redemption  after  death ;  nothing  to  warrant  the  theory  of  pio- 

gressive  sanctification  after  death. 

Now  there  are  some  things  very  clear  in  the  revelation  of  this 
mystery  in  I.  Cor.  15  (51,  S*)-  A11  dead  Christians  are  asleep. 

When  we  are  asleep  we  show  the  rest  which  consists  in  the  inac¬ 
tion  of  mind  and  body.  But  all  Christians,  both  dead  and  living, 
must  be  changed;  and  why  the  dead  Christians  should  be  com¬ 
pelled  to  go  through  the  process  of  sanctification  in  the  Middle 
State,  while  the  living  Christians  are  the  subjects  of  immediate 
sanctification,  I  cannot  imagine.  The  Court  will  notice  that  the 
dead  are  raised  incorruptible.  The  context  shows  that  they  be¬ 
come  incorruptible,  as  this  corruptible  puts  on  incorruption  and 

as  this  mortal  puts  on  immortality. 

In  Hebrews  xii.  :  23,  the  thought  of  the  writer  is  absorbed  by 
the  society  of  that  heaven  to  which  he  and  his  fellow  pilgrims 
were  going  as  he  speaks  of  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect. 
And  Lange  on  Hebrews,  page  208,  observes  that  “the  mention 
of  ‘  the  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect  ’  argues  decisively  alike 
against  the  assumption  of  a  sleep  of  the  souls  of  the  departed,, 
and  against  the  doctrine  of  a  purgatory,”  and  we  might  add  that 
it  argues  against  the  unpsychological,  the  unethical,  the  contra- 
confessional  and  unscriptural  doctrines  of  the  Middle  State  set 


63 


forth  in  the  Inaugural  Address,  and  which  is  the  ground  of 
Charge  VI. 

But  let  Scripture  interpret  Scripture.  In  John  i.  29: 

“29  The  next  day  John  seeth  Jesus  coming  unto  him,  and 
saith,  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world.  ” 

John  the  Baptist  certainly  affirms  that  the  atonement  of  Christ 
removes  the  sin  with  its  penalty  which  bars  us  out  of  heaven,  as 
is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
the  Apostle  John,  when  he  gives  us  Revelation’s  record  of  what 
he  saw  in  heaven,  declares,  Rev.  vii.  9,  13,  14: 

“  9  After  this  I  beheld,  and  lo,  a  great  multitude,  which  no 
man  could  number,  of  all  nations,  and  kindreds,  and  people,  and 
tongues,  stood  before  the  throne,  and  before  the  Lamb,  clothed 
with  white  robes,  and  palms  in  their  hands.  13  And  one  of 
the  elders  answered,  saying  unto  me,  What  are  these  which  are 
arrayed  in  white  robes  ?  and  whence  come  they?  14  And 
I  said  unto  him,  Sir,  thou  knowest.  And  he  said  to  me,  These 
are  they  which  come  out  of  great  tribulation,  and  have  washed 
their  robes  and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb”  ;  teach¬ 
ing  that  the  multitude  of  the  world’s  redeemed  gathered  around 
this  same  Lamb,  and  that  their  robes  were  washed  and  made 
white  in  His  blood.  Rev.  14:  13  says:  “And  I  heard  a  voice 
from  Heaven  saying  unto  me,  Write  blessed  are  the  dead  wffiich 
die  in  the  Lord  from  henceforth;  yea,  saith  the  Spirit,  that  they 
may  rest  from  their  labours ;  and  their  works  do  follow  them,” 
that  those  who  die  in  the  Lord  rest  from  their  labours;  and  that 
the  members  of  the  Church,  the  Lamb’s  wife,  Rev.  19:  8: 
“And  to  her  was  granted  that  she  should  be  arrayed  in  fine 
linen,  clean  and  white;  for  the  fine  linen  is  the  righteousness  of 
saints,”  teaching  that  saved  sinners  are  arrayed  in  that  fine 
linen,  clean  and  white,  which  is  the  righteousness  of  saints.. 
And  1  John  3:2:  “Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and 
it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be ;  but  we  know  that, 
when  he  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like  him;  for  we  shall  see 
him  as  he  is,” 

teaches  that  it  is  not  safe  to  dogmatize  on  the  details  of  our 
future  because  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be.  We  only 


64 


know  one  thing;  we  shall  be  like  Him;  for  we  shall  see  Him  as 
He  is;  and  does  not  the  presence  of  Christ  require  complete 
sanctification?  I  call  attention  to  the  following  Scripture. 

i  John  3:  9—10:  9  Whosoever  is  born  of  God  doth  not  com¬ 

mit  sin  ;  for  his  seed  remaineth  in  him  ;  and  he  cannot  sin,  because 
he  is  born  of  God.  10  In  this  the  children  of  God  are  manifest, 
and  the  children  of  the  devil;  whosoever  doeth  not  righteousness 
is  not  of  God,  neither  he  that  loveth  not  his  brother.” 

Timothy  4:  7-8:  “  7  But  refuse  profane  and  old  wives’  fables, 
and  exercise  thyself  rather  unto  godliness.  8  For  bodily  exer¬ 
cise  profiteth  little;  but  godliness  is  profitable  unto  all  things, 
having  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is,  and  of  that  which  is  to 
come ;  ” 

and  Revelations  3:4-5:  “4  Thou  hast  a  few  names  even  in 

Sardis  which  have  not  defiled  their  garments;  and  they  shall  walk 
with  me  in  white;  for  they  are  worthy.  5  He  that  overcometh, 
the  same  shall  be  clothed  in  white  raiment;  and  I  will  not  blot 
out  his  name  out  of  the  book  of  life,  but  I  will  confess  his  name 
before  my  Father,  and  before  his  angels.” 

These  passages  present  the  doctrine  of  sanctification.  The 
sanctified  do  not  commit  sin,  do  righteousness,  love  the  breth¬ 
ren,  exercise  themselves  unto  godliness,  do  not  defile  their 
garments,  thus  exhibiting  that  godliness  which  has  the  promise 
of  the  life  to  come.  These  undefiled  on.  earth  pass  through 
death  to  heaven  and  are  clothed  in  white  raiment,  enrolled  in 
heaven’s  registry,  and  confessed  by  Christ  before  the  Father 
and  the  holy  angels.* 

“  25  Husbands,  love  your  wives,  even  as  Christ  also  loved  the 
church,  and  gave  himself  for  it;  26  That  he  might  sanctify 
and  cleanse  it  with  the  washing  of  water  by  the  word, 
27  That  he  might  present  it  to  himself  a  glorious  church 
not  having  spot,  or  wrinkle,  or  any  such  thing;  but  that  it  should 
be  holy  and  without  blemish.” 

This  passage  describes  earth’s  work  as  the  Church  is  sanctified 
and  cleaned  with  the  washing  of  water  by  the  word  as  Christians 
are  living  Bibles.  But  the  same  Church  in  Heaven  is  a  glorious 
Church  without  spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such  thing,  holy  and  without 


*  Ephesians  5:  25-27 


65 


blemish.  In  Ephesians,  3:  15-16:  “15  Of  whom  the  whole 
family  in  heaven  and  earth  is  named.  16  That  he  would  grant 
you,  according  to  the  riches  of  his  glory,  to  be  strengthened 
with  might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner  man.”  Paul  does  not  pray 
for  that  part  of  the  Church  which  is  in  heaven,  but  for  that 
part  on  the  earth,  when  he  says,  “That  He  would  grant  you 
according  to  the  riches  of  His  glory,  to  be  strengthened  with 
might  by  His  Spirit  in  the  inner  man.” 

Luke  16  :  22,  26  : 

“22  And  it  came  to  pass,  that  the  beggar  died,  and  was  car¬ 
ried  by  the  angels  into  Abraham’s  bosom;  the  rich  man  also 
died,  and  was  buried.  26  And  besides  all  this,  between  us  and 
you  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed;  so  that  they  which  would  pass 
from  hence  to  you  cannot;  neither  can  they  pass  to  us,  that 
would  come  from  thence  ”, 
proves  that  as  death  finds  us,  eternity  fixes  us. 

The  standards  are  the  expression  of  these  declarations  of 
Scripture.  Christ  takes  care  of  the  departed  soul  and  the  dead 
body  until  the  reunion  at  the  resurrection  of  the  last  day. 

Therefore,  psychology  has  no  statement,  ethical  philosophy 
has  no  construction,  the  logic  of  sanctification  no  refinement 
that  ought  to  lead  this  Court  to  give  the  least  consideration  to 
the  Inaugural’s  theory  of  progressive  sanctification  after  death. 
The  Inaugural  certainly  deals  with  the  future  state  in  a  manner 
unwarranted  by  the  example  of  those  who  have  returned  to  the 
earth  from  behind  the  veil  which  separates  time  from  eternity. 
Samuel  appeared  to  Saul,  the  doomed  king,  and,  if  I  mistake 
not,  he  made  the  monarch  feel  that  there  would  be  no  reversal 
of  his  sentence.  Lazarus  came  forth  from  the  tomb  to  show 
how  Jesus  Christ  makes  death  stingless,  and  is  it  to  make  death 
stingless  to  usher  us  into  the  dying  incident  to  sanctification  in 
this  life.  Paul  was  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven,  and  this 
Inaugural  presumes  to  speak  ex  cathedra  concerning  a  state 
where  he  says  that  he  “  heard  unspeakable  words  not  lawful  for  a 
man  to  utter.”*  Jesus  Christ  left  the  sepulchre,  and  the  New 
Testament,  from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  to  the  book  of  Revela¬ 
tion,  inclusive, does  not  show  a  scintilla  of  proof  that  in  His  instruc- 


*11,  Corinthians  xii.  4. 


66 


tion  of  the  disciples  in  the  things  pertaining  to  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  during  the  forty  days’  interval  between  His  resurrection  and 
ascension,  He  gave  the  faintest  hint  of  progressive  sanctifica¬ 
tion  after  death.  Although  Samuel,  Lazarus  and  Paul  are  silent 
and  Jesus  Christ  confirms  them  in  that  silence,  yet  the  Inaugural, 
in  spite  of  that  silence,  steps  forth  with  a  logic  whose  conclusion 
is  that  it  is  not  exactly  unsafe  for  a  man  to  die  impenitent,  foi 
if  the  righteous  can  fill  up  the  lack  of  this  life  in  the  future,  the 
wicked  ought  to  have  the  same  chance ;  the  conclusion  that  the 
righteous  are  not  after  death  in  a  state  where  the  wicked  cease 
from  troubling  and  the  weary  are  at  rest,  a  conclusion  which  en¬ 
courages  prayer  for  the  dead  and  cuts  the  nerve  of  evangelistic 
effort. 

The  Inaugural  does  not  make  a  legitimate  use  of  Reason  in  its 
eschatology.  It  deplores  the  neglect  to  study  “the  Messiahs 
descent  into  the  abode  of  the  dead  (I  quote) :  a  doctrine  of  great 
importance  to  the  Ancient  Church  of  His  resurrection,  His  en¬ 
thronement,  His  reign  of  grace,  His  second  advent — O  how 
these  have  been  neglected.”*  So  say  I,  so  says  the  Bible,  so  says 
the  Confession,  but  both  Bible  and  Confession  warn  us  to  confine 
our  studies  on  these  subjects  to  the  lines  laid  down  by  the  Scrip¬ 
tures.  We  are  never  to  forget  the  lesson  our  Lord  taught  Peter: 
“What  I  do  thou  knowest  not  now;  but  thou  shall  know  here¬ 
after.  ”f  We  are  not  to  be  oblivious  to  the  fact  that,  along  with 
Paul,  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly;  only  know  in  part;  must 
pass  into  the  beyond  before  we  can  see  face  to  face,  and  know 
even  as  we  are  known.  We  are  to  remember  that,  while  on  earth 
speaking  as  a  child,  understanding  as  a  child,  thinking  as  a  child, 
we  can  neither  speak,  nor  understand,  nor  think  as  we  will  when 
having  attained  that  perfect  holiness  which  is  the  believer’s  at 
death  we  have  put  away  childish  things.  So  that  the  danger  of 
dogmatizing  concerning  the  future  lies  in  the  look  of  the  student 
through  the  darkness;  in  his  exhibition  of  the  vain  reach  of  par¬ 
tial  knowledge  after  certainty;  in  the  display  of  the  undeveloped 
powers  of  human  nature’s  childishness,  as  they  manifest  them¬ 
selves  in  hypothetical  statements  and  remote  possibilities.  It 


*  Inaugural  Address,  Third  Edition,  page  61. 
t  John  13:7. 


67 


goes  without  saying,  in  the  literary,  scientific  and  theological 
worlds,  that  this  is  the  common  fault  of  that  Higher  Criticism 
which  the  Inaugural  represents.  An  expert  in  its  line  of  inves¬ 
tigation  tells  us  that,  since  1850,  the  Higher  Critics  have  set 
forth  539  theories  in  regard  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  208  in 
regard  to  the  New  Testament.  Of  the  whole  747,  603  have  been 
given  up,  and  a  goodly  portion  of  the  remaining  144  are  losing 
their  hold.  How  true  the  remark  of  the  author  of  the  Inaugu¬ 
ral  Address,  in  his  Biblical  Study,  page  80:  “Criticism  itself,  as 
a  human  method  of  knowledge,  is  also  defective,  and  needs  self- 
criticism  for  its  own  rectification,  security  and  progress.  It 
must  again  and  again  verify  its  methods  and  correct  its  pro¬ 
cesses.”  I  have  somewhere  noticed  the  suggestion  that  some 
optical  students  have  been  of  opinion  that,  if  they  had  been  con¬ 
sulted,  the  eye  might  have  been  better  made  than  nature  or  the 
Creator  has  made  it.  But  such  criticism  requires  Omniscience 
to  justify  it.  I  think  that  I  put  it  rightly  when  I  say  that,  in 
ourselves,  as  we  grapple  with  the  problems  of  the  Bible,  and 
especially  with  the  problem  of  the  Middle  State,  we 

‘  ‘  Are  infants  crying  in  the  night, 

And  with  no  language  but  a  cry,” 

and  we  announce  no  new  discovery  when  we  say  that  the  Higher 
Criticism  has  disciples  who  forget,  in  their  study  of  the  Bible, 
that  an  infant  is  dealing  with  the  Omniscient  God. 

Thus,  Mr.  Moderator,  Fathers  and  Brethren  of  this  venerable 
Court,  I  have  endeavored  to  show  why  the  Court  should  sustain 
the  Charges  and  Specifications  tabled  by  the  Committee  of 
Prosecution. 

The  Committee  has  confined  itself  to  that  which  is  funda¬ 
mental  to  the  whole  discussion.  It  has  sought  to  grasp  the  root 
of  the  matter,  on  account  of  the  principle  laid  down  by  our 
Lord  in  Luke  6:43-44:  “For  a  good  tree  bringeth  not  forth 
corrupt  fruit;  neither  doth  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit. 
For  every  tree  is  known  by  his  own  fruit.  For  of  thorns  men  do 
not  gather  figs;  neither  of  a  bramble-bush  gather  they  grapes.’ 

The  Prosecuting  Committee  do  not  plead  at  the  bar  of  this 
Court  as  the  opponents  of  Higher  Criticism.  We  all  believe  that 
the  Scriptures  should  be  searched  by  the  most  thorough  scholar- 


68 


ship.  But  we  do  not  disguise  the  fact  that  we  are  but  five  of  the 
thousands  who  are  the  foes  of  that  Higher  Criticism  which  has 
borne  fruit  in  such  a  production  as  the  Inaugural  Address.  For 
its  denial  of  an  infallible  Bible  brings  forth  fruit  in  an  exceed¬ 
ingly  fallible  system  of  theology.  It  makes  light  of  the  Super¬ 
natural  element  of  the  Scripture  miracle,  notwithstanding  the 
proof  it  gave  to  Nicodemus  of  the  direct  agency  of  God,  notwith¬ 
standing  the  denial  by  Peter  that  there  was  anything  occult  in 
the  cure  of  the  lame  man  who  laid  at  the  gate  of  the  temple.  Its 
presentation  of  man’s  original  condition  speaks  the  language 
neither  of  the  Scriptures  nor  of  the  Standards  with  respect  to 
original  righteousness  and  original  sin.  Its  assertion  of  race- 
redemption  at  once  suggests  Universalism,  and  seems  to  set  aside 
individual  regeneration,  faith,  repentance  and  accountability. 
While  it  exalts  the  ancient  heroes  of  the  faith,  it  takes  care  to 
tell  us  that  respectable  modern  society  would  not  receive  into 
the  family  Noah  and  Abraham,  Jacob  and  Judah,  David  and  Sol¬ 
omon.  It  bases  this  surprising  statement  on  the  opinion  that  in 
their  time,  the  divine  exposition  of  sin  was  not  so  searching,  and 
the  divine  law  of  righteousness  not  so  evident.  But  Hebrews, 
XI.,  teaches  the  contrary  with  respect  to  Noah,  Abraham  and 
Jacob.  Judah  could  teach  many  modern  sinners  a  lesson  of  hon¬ 
esty.  I.  Kings,  iv.  5  informs  us  that  David,  with  one  exception, 
turned  not  aside  from  that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  the 
Lord.  Solomon  was  in  close  communion  with  God.  We  are  not 
to  forget  that  all  these  persons  were  under  the  correction  of 
divine  righteousness. 

The  Inaugural  Address  refers  to  the  ethics  of  Jesus  Christ  in 
terms  which  do  not  recall  Paul’s  idea  of  ethical  Christianity,  as 
he  says:  “  I  live  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me 
and  gave  Himself  for  me.”  It  is  out  of  harmony  with  all  the 
prayer  and  singing  and  preaching  of  evangelical  churches.  It 
confounds  fact  with  traditionalism  and  falsifies  History,  Phil¬ 
osophy  and  Science  as  applicable  to  the  Scriptures,  by  exalting 
what  is  called  Biblical  Theology  to  the  disparagement  of  System¬ 
atic  Theology  as  formulated  in  the  Creeds  and  Confessions  of 
the  Church,  while  everybody  knows  that  Systematic  Theology, 
to  be  theology,  must  be  Biblical  Theology,  and  that  the  Bible 


69 


itself  abounds  in  systematic  statement ;  as  for  example  the  Ten 
Commandments  and  the  Apostolic  Benediction.  But  the  unsci¬ 
entific  character  of  this  Biblical  Theology  is  apparent  in  the  fact 
that  it  so  abounds  in  statements  which  involve  the  nature  of  the 
Bible  itself  as  to  give  ground  for  the  following  inquiries  from  an 
infidel  of  the  present  day:  “Is  it  (the  Bible)  the  Word  of  God, 
or  does  it  only  contain  some  words  of  God?  Was  it  verbally  in¬ 
spired  or  inspired  only  in  a  general  way?  Did  the  events  which 
it  records  actually  happen,  or  are  many  of  its  stories  which 
appear  in  historical  form  only  symbolical  myths  or  fairy  tales? 
Was  the  world  created  in  six  days,  or  is  the  first  part  of  Genesis 
only  a  poem?  ” 

We  cannot  deny  the  existence  of  a  widely  spread  conviction 
that  the  Inaugural  Address  has  a  divisive  and  destructive  tend¬ 
ency  which  imperils  the  peace  of  the  Church,  encourages  the 
enemies  of  the  truth,  and  interferes  with  the  proper  training  of 
our  candidates  for  the  ministry.  And  all  this  it  does  in  the  nom¬ 
enclature  of  the  Higher  Criticism.  We  extract  from  its  vocabu¬ 
lary,  as  follows:  Imagination  ;  Inference  ;  Conjecture;  Psycho¬ 
logical  Sense;  Development;  Philosophy;  Method  of  Inference; 
I  venture  to  affirm;  Suggests  the  conjecture;  I  assume;  I  ex¬ 
clude;  Evidently  inserted;  Interpolation;  Best  scholarship; 
Blind  conservatism;  Narrow  traditionalism. 

Just  here  is  the  place  for  a  very  brief  outline  of  the  evolution 
of  the  document  which  is  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  Charges 
and  Specifications  before  the  Court. 

I.  Jean  Astruc,  1684-1753:  “  Conjectures  on  the  original 

memoirs  which  Moses  used  in  completing  the  Book  of  Genesis.” 
It  appears  that  Astruc  did  not  tell  the  truth  concerning  his  first 
publication.  Voltaire  called  Astruc’s  work  audacious,  danger¬ 
ous,  and  said  that  “it  redoubled  the  darkness  it  sought  to  dis¬ 
perse.” 

II.  Johann  Salome  Semler,  1725-1791,  Professor  at  Halle, 
Prof.  Kurtz  declares  that  he  cast  doubt  on  the  genuineness  of  the 
biblical  writings  by  setting  up  a  theory  of  inspiration  and  accom¬ 
modation  which  admitted  the  presence  of  error,  misunderstanding 
and  pious  fraud  in  the  Scriptures,  by  a  style  of  exposition  which 
put  aside  everything  unattractive  in  the  New  Testament  as  “  rem- 


70 


nants  of  Judaism  ”  by  a  critical  treatment  of  the  Church  and  its 
doctrines,  which  represented  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  as  the 
result  of  blundering,  misconception  and  violence,”  &c. 

III.  George  Lorenz  Bauer,  1755-1806,  Professor  at  Heidel¬ 
berg.  Bible  to  be  interpreted  by  grammatical  and  historical  con¬ 
siderations;  not  with  reference  to  theological  doctrines.  Differ¬ 
ence  between  the  dogmatic  opinions  of  the  writers  of  the  differ¬ 
ent  books  of  the  Bible,  Biblical  Theology  of  the  Inangural  Ad¬ 
dress  found  in  this  writer. 

IV.  Bruno  Bauer,  1809.  Free  action  of  the  reason.  Many 
catch  words,  terms  of  the  author  of  the  Inaugural  are  from  this 
author,  e.  g.,  The  Inaugural  uses  the  term  The  Reason.  In  Eng¬ 
lish  we  usually  say  “  Reason  ”  without  “  The.” 

This  notable  Address  deals  with  the  established  verities  of 
Christianity,  as  for  example  the  Divine  Sovereignty  and  the 
Atonement,  as  the  student  of  mathematics  whose  problems  pro¬ 
pose  conditions  which  contradict  the  axioms  of  the  science, 
such  as  “  The  whole  is  the  sum  of  all  its  parts.”  “Things  that  are 
equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one  another.”  For  there  is 
no  Divine  Sovereignty  if  God  recalled  a  decree  in  the  case  of 
Nineveh;  there  is  no  Atonement,  if  men  are  saved  irrespective 
of  individual  character.  Science  reports  facts;  history  events; 
theology  doctrines;  but  the  author  of  the  Inaugural  reports 
theories  which  are  the  fruit  of  his  individual  conclusions,  not 
established  results. 

This  Court  should  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  defendant 
is  a  theological  teacher.  Let  me  invite  its  attention  to  the 
following  observations  on  the  relation  of  students  to  a  popular 
professor,  which  were  occasioned  by  an  ecclesiastical  trial  on  the 
other  side  of  the  ocean.  “  The  students  look  not  in  the  dry  light 
of  exegesis.  If  they  do  not  support  a  popular  professor  whether 
right  or  wrong,  it  is  evident  that  their  personal  attachment 
strongly  influences  them.  And  the  fact  that  students  are  prone 
to  give  unreasoning  regard  to  a  popular  professor,  might  be  cited 
as  a  good  reason  why  the  Church  should  carefully  select  its 
theological  professors.”  The  force  of  this  statement  is  effectively 
described  by  Mr.  Spurgeon,  “I  heard  of  a  gentleman  who 
taught  Greek.  After  a  while  the  class  went  to  another  gentle- 


n 


man,  and  he  said  that  it  was  more  trouble  to  get  the  wrong 
teaching  they  had  received  out  of  their  heads  than  to  get  the 
right  teaching  in.  To  unlearn  is  more  trouble  than  to  learn.” 

If  I  mistake  not  the  Presbyterian  Church  will  be  slow  to  com¬ 
mend  instruction  which  sends  forth  ministers  from  her  theologi¬ 
cal  halls  trained  to  doubt  rather  than  to  believe. 

So,  considered  as  a  whole,  the  Inaugural  Address  in  its  her¬ 
meneutics,  is  unscientific;  in  its  theology,  unbiblical;  in  its 
anthropology,  unphilosophical ;  in  its  soteriology,  inadequate ; 
in  its  eschatology,  a  guess;  in  its  ecclesiology,  Romish;  in  its 
polemics,  heterodox  ;  in  its  practical  theology,  contradicting 
the  axiom  “That  truth  is  in  order  to  goodness.”  And  this 
is  just  because  of  the  principle  announced  by  its  author  in 
Biblical  Study,  page  194:  “That  the  exegete  prefers  the  may 
until  he  is  forced  to  the  must”  a  principle  which  has  certainly  run 
to  seed  in  the  Inaugural. 

If  this  Court  sustains  the  Charges  and  Specifications  tabled  by 
the  Committee  of  Prosecution  it  will  be  because  it  deems  that 
the  Inaugural  Address  puts  the  author  out  of  relation  with  his 
denominational  environment.  This  belief  is  emphasized  when 
we  consider  his  professional  environment.  The  Inaugural  is  not 
abreast  of  Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith  on  Inspiration  and  Eschatology. 
It  is  not  abreast  of  Dr.  Schaff  on  “Biblical  Interpretation  ”  in 
Lange’s  Commentary,  and  on  the  Westminster  Confession  in  his 
“Creeds  of  Christendom.”  It  is  not  abreast  of  Dr.  Vincent  in 
his  ‘  ‘  Word  Studies  of  the  New  Testament.  ”  It  runs  right  athwart 
the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Lexicons  of  the  man  who  gives  the  name 
to  the  Edward  Robinson  Chair  of  Biblical  Theology  in  the 
Union  Seminary.  And  when  it  makes  so  little  of  what  it  calls 
the  circumstantials  of  Scripture  it  discounts  the  faithful  labors 
whose  glorious  result  appeared  in  the  publication  of  “Biblical 
Researches  in  Palestine”  in  the  interest  of  a  verification  of  the 
circumstantials  of  the  Bible.  It  is  also  out  of  relation  with  the 
consensus  of  thought  of  the  American  Presbyterian  ministry, 
both  past  and  present  (among  whom  are  not  a  few  of  the  Union 
Seminary  Alumni),  and  has  brought  forth  a  protest  from  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  denomination. 

Surprise  has  been  expressed  that  we  ordinary  pastors  and  lay- 


n 


men  should  presume  to  call  in  question  the  deductions  of  emi¬ 
nent  scholarship.  Spener  once,  in  talking  about  Martin 
Luther,  said:  “When  a  dwarf  stands  upon  the  shoulders  of  a 
giant,  he  owes  his  commanding  view  to  the  tallness  of  his 
upholder.”  No  wonder,  then,  that  a  common  instructor,  who  is 
far  inferior  to  Luther,  should  sometimes  see  things  the  Great 
Reformer  himself  did  not  see,  and  which  he  could  not  have  dis¬ 
covered  if  he  had  not  been  lifted  so  high  by  Luther.  Now, 
Mr.  Moderator,  I  have  endeavored  to  look  at  this  question  from 
the  shoulders  of  two  millenniums  of  scholarship,  and  I  think 
myself  happy  in  announcing  that  in  this  argument  I  have  found 
no  firmer  support  than  when  I  have  stood  on  the  shoulders  of 
professors  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary. 

Mr.  Moderator,  Fathers  and  Brethren:  The  members  of  the 
Committee  of  Prosecution,  in  pleading  before  this  venerable 
Court,  are  no  less  anxious  that  these  Charges  and  Specifications 
should  fail  if  we  are  wrong  than  we  are  that  they  should  be  sus¬ 
tained  if  we  are  right. 

But  until  convinced  that  we  are  wrong  we  feel  that  it  would  be 
wrong  for  the  Presbyterian  Church  to  compromise  in  the  slightest 
degree  her  position  with  respect  to  the  authority  of  the  Holy 
Scripture  and  with  respect  to  the  Bible,  which  commences  with 
Genesis  and  ends  with  Revelation,  translated  into  English  out 
of  the  Original  Tongues,  both  in  its  circumstantials  and  essen¬ 
tials,  whether  they  appear  in  “narrative  example,  description 
type,  argument,  appeal,  exhortation,  warning,  precept,  promise, 
presentations  and  representations,  in  prose  and  poetry,”*  and 
confirmed  by  the  philology,  archaeology,  chronology,  historiology, 
ecclesiology,  theology  and  psychology  of  human  scholarship, 
as  the  sceptre  of  that  authority. 

It  will  indeed  be  a  sad  day  for  the  Presbyterian  Church  when, 
breathing  the  atmosphere  of  the  Inaugural  Address,  she  so  for¬ 
gets  herself  as  to  declare  that  a  man’s  moral  sense  is  the  test  of 
inspiration;  as  to  turn  her  back  on  ethics  and  theology  for  the 
sake  of  Hebrew  roots;  as  to  magnify  learning  at  the  expense  of 
logic;  as  to  assert  that  criticism  is  everything  and  character 
nothing;  as  to  deny  common  sense  for  the  sake  of  uncommon 


*  McCosh’s  Intuitions  of  the  Mind,  page  444. 


73 

scholastic  attainments;  as  to  banish  the  Divine  factor  from  his¬ 
tory;  as  to  sacrifice  truth  to  antithesis. 

Two  children  were  playing  with  a  boat  at  the  seaside.  “You 
will  have  to  fix  that  mast  better  before  you  sail  it,”  said  their 
father.  “But,”  said  the  boy,  only  too  eager  to  launch  the 
miniature  vessel,  “it’s  all  but  right.”  “All  but  right,”  said  his 
discerning  elder  sister,  “all  but  right;  well,  that’s  wrong.” 
Now,  if  a  minister  or  teacher  be  all  but  right  with  respect  to  the 
Holy  Scripture  as  God’s  word  written,  and  the  rule  of  faith  and 
practice,  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  Amer¬ 
ica  would  be  false  to  her  standards,  false  to  her  history,  false  to 
the  world,  and  'false  to  her  God,  if  she  were  not  to  say,  “Well, 
that’s  wrong.”  For  she  cannot  do  without  the  cloud  by  day 
and  pillar  of  fire  by  night,  which  God  has  given  her  in  this 
blessed  old  Book,  God’s  Book,  Reason’s  Book,  the  Church’s 
Book,  and  consequently  Man’s  Book.  Rock  firmer  than  Gibral¬ 
tar,  for  heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  the  Word  which 
Christ  the  Word  of  the  Word  owns  as  His,  shall  not  pass  away; 
Rock  of  the  Ages,  with  its  one  old,  old  story,  which  American 
Presbyterianism  has  told,  and  will  tell  over  and  over  and  over 
again;  the  story  that  pierced  the  gloom  of  Eden’s  expul¬ 
sion  with  the  light  of  hope  as  it  beamed  from  the  Star  of 
Bethlehem;  the  story  that  cheered  Abraham’s  heart  as  he 
looked  forward  to  Christ’s  day  and  was  glad;  the  story  that 
caused  David  to  leave  the  world  with  an  anthem  of  triumph  as 
he  sung  of  an  everlasting  covenant  ordered  in  all  things  and 
sure;  the  story  which  made  the  visit  of  Nicodemus  to  Jesus  the 
most  memorable  night  of  His  life;  the  story  with  which  the 
Holy  Ghost  shook  Jerusalem  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost;  the  story 
through  which  my  brother  in  Christ  we  received  power  to  become 
the  sons  of  God  as  we  believed  on  His  name;  the  story  which 
the  Church  Militant  will  through  her  courts,  her  theological 
seminaries,  her  pulpits,  her  Sunday  schools,  her  homes,  her 
members  ever  tell  as  she  goes  up  through  this  wilderness  to  the 
Church  Triumphant  singing  Dear  dying  Lamb,  Thou  Christ  of  the 
Bible;  Thou  Christ  of  the  Old  Testament;  Thou  Christ  of  the 
Law;  Thou  Christ  of  the  Prophets,  and  Thou  Christ  of  the 
Psalms;  Thou  Christ  of  the  New  Testament;  Thou  Christ  of  the 


74 


Gospels;  Thou  Christ  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  Gospel  of 
the  Holy  Ghost;  Thou  Christ  of  the  Epistles;  Thou  Christ  of 
the  Book  of  Revelation;  Thou  Christ  of  the  Divine,  Infallible, 

Inerrant  Bible. 

“  Dear  dying  Lamb,  thy  precious  blood 
Shall  never  lose  its  power 
Till  all  the  ransomed  church  of  God 
Be  saved  to  sin  no  more.” 


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